Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud, whose work stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Freud developed and refined the theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. In an encyclopedia article, he identified the cornerstones of psychoanalysis as "the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of repression and resistance, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus complex." Freud's students Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung developed offshoots of psychoanalysis which they called individual psychology (Adler) and Analytical Psychology (Jung), although Freud himself wrote a number of criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers, such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.
Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO was an influential English psychoanalyst, who became president of the British Psychoanalytical Society from 1962 to 1965.
Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud.
Donald Woods Winnicott was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology. He was a leading member of the British Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytical Society, President of the British Psychoanalytical Society twice, and a close associate of Marion Milner.
Countertransference is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.
Transference is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which repetitions of old feelings, old attitudes, old desires, and/or old fantasies that someone displaces, are subconsciously projected onto a here-and-now person. Traditionally, it had solely concerned feelings from a primary relationship during childhood.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are two categories of psychological therapies. Their main purpose is revealing the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension, which is inner conflict within the mind that was created in a situation of extreme stress or emotional hardship, often in the state of distress. The terms "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" and "psychodynamic psychotherapy" are often used interchangeably, but a distinction can be made in practice: though psychodynamic psychotherapy largely relies on psychoanalytical theory, it employs substantially shorter treatment periods than traditional psychoanalytical therapies.
The British Psychoanalytical Society was founded by the British neurologist Ernest Jones as the London Psychoanalytical Society on 30 October 1913. It is one of two organizations in Britain training psychoanalysts, the other being the British Psychoanalytic Association.
Henry James Samuel Guntrip was a British psychologist known for his major contributions to object relations theory or school of Freudian thought. He was a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a psychotherapist and lecturer at the Department of Psychiatry, Leeds University, and also a Congregationalist minister. He was described by Dr Jock Sutherland as "one of the psychoanalytic immortals".
André Green was a French psychoanalyst.
Robert Douglas Hinshelwood is an English psychiatrist and academic. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. He trained as a doctor and psychiatrist. He has taken an interest in the Therapeutic Community movement since 1974, and was founding editor of The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, having edited, with Nick Manning, Therapeutic Communities: Reflections and Progress.
Rafael E. Lopez-Corvo, M.D. is a Venezuelan-born medical doctor, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is a former associate professor at Ottawa and McGill Universities and Program Director of Child and Adolescents Unite at the Douglas Hospital, McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He was also a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis for Latin-America. Likewise, he is a training and supervising psychoanalyst for the International Psychoanalytic Association as well as the Canadian, Venezuelan and American Psychoanalytic Societies.
The Independent or Middle Group of British analysts represents one of the three distinct sub-schools of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and 'developed what is known as the British independent perspective, which argued that the primary motivation of the child is object-seeking rather than drive gratification'. The 'Independent group...is strongly associated with the concept of countertransference as well as with a seemingly pragmatic, anti-theoretical attitude to psychoanalysis'.
Neville Symington was a member of the Middle Group of British Psychoanalysts which argues that the primary motivation of the child is object-seeking rather than drive gratification. He published a number of books on psychoanalytic topics, and was President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society from 1999 to 2002.
Child psychoanalysis is a sub-field of psychoanalysis which was founded by Anna Freud. Freud used the work of her father Sigmund Freud with certain modifications directed towards the needs of children. Since its inception, child psychoanalysis has grown into a well-known therapeutic technique for children and adolescents.
Robert Joseph Langs was a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychoanalyst. He was the author, co-author, or editor of more than forty books on psychotherapy and human psychology. Over the course of more than fifty years, Langs developed a revised version of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, currently known as the "adaptive paradigm". This is a distinctive model of the mind, and particularly of the mind's unconscious component, significantly different from other forms of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Gerald Frederick Schoenewolf is an American psychoanalyst best known for his staunch promotion of neoclassical psychoanalytic theory. He is the author of 13 books on psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Marilyn Charles is a psychoanalyst, writer, lecturer and 2014–2015 President of the American Psychological Association's Division 39 (Psychoanalysis). Marilyn Charles has published articles and books on numerous topics, including trauma, Jacques Lacan, Wilfred Bion, creativity, and madness. She is on the staff at Austen Riggs Center, a co-chair of the Division 39 Early Career Committee, and a co-chair of the Association for Psychoanalysis, Society and Culture. She is a contributing editor of APCS's journal, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, which is published quarterly by Palgrave Macmillan. Marilyn is affiliated with Harvard Medical School, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and the University of Monterrey, and is also a member of the Humanities and Psychoanalysis Committee. In 2014 Marilyn Charles received a leadership award at the 2014 APA Division 39 Spring Meeting, acknowledging her efforts in “the advancement of psychoanalytic psychology as a discipline and practice.”
Psychodynamic Therapy with Infants and Parents aims to relieve emotional disturbances within the parent(s), the baby, and/or their interaction, for example, postnatal depression and anxiety, infant distress with breastfeeding and sleep, and attachment disorders. It rests on attachment theory and psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud suggested that a modification of his method could be applied to children, and child analysis was introduced in the 1920s by [Anna Freud].., [Melanie Klein], and Hermine Hug von Hellmuth. Klein speculated on infantile experiences to understand her patients' disorders but she did not practice PTIP. Donald Winnicott, a pediatrician and analyst, focused on the mother-baby interplay in his theorizing and his brief parent-child consultations, but he did not work with PTIP.
Patrick Casement is a British psychoanalyst and author of multiple books and journal articles on contemporary psychoanalytic technique. He has been described as a pioneer in the relational approaches to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy by Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology. His book 'Learning from Our Mistakes' received a Gradiva award for its contribution to psychoanalysis, and his book 'Learning Along the Way: Further Reflections on Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy' was listed in the top 100 psychotherapy books of all time by Bookauthority.
