HWN Suggests

Psychoanalysis Can Be Pretty Useful

According to Robert Rowland Smith at More Intelligent Life, psychoanalysis--the butt of jokes and a decades-long bane of checkbook balances--is losing its scientific chops, thanks to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Unlike psychoanalysis, CBT is a measurable, quantifiable treatment. Calling psychoanalysis "science" is "laughable," while Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a science dream of sorts, for many of the reason psychoanalysis is derided

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 Is Psychoanalysis Still Relevant to Psychiatry?

Psychoanalysis is a theory of psychopathology and a treatment for mental disorders. Fifty years ago, this paradigm had great influence on the teaching and practice of psychiatry. Today, psychoanalysis has been marginalized and is struggling to survive in a hostile academic and clinical environment.1,2 This raises the question as to whether the paradigm is still relevant in psychiatric science and practice.

 Not Your Daddy’s Freud

A new generation of analysts and patients is embracing the father of psychoanalysis – in magazines and memes and many hours on the couch.

 Psychoanalysis, Science or Pseudoscience?

As much as the couch is a piece of furniture associated with television, the “divan” or Turkish couch is a piece of furniture associated with psychoanalysis. Starting at the end of the 19th century, the Austrian Sigmund Freud abandoned neurological research to develop his psychotherapy, the method that acquired such notoriety that it became an ingredient of Western popular culture, elevating its originator to the position of the most famous psychiatrist —something he never was— of all time. But his status is wrapped up in a perennial polemic: Is there any scientific evidence to support psychoanalysis? Or is it merely a pseudoscience, perhaps among the most academic of them all?

 Psychologists have traditionally focused on the past – what if that’s all wrong?

For over a century, psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers focused people’s attention on the past. And so when Mary struggles to maintain romantic relationships, she blames her past boyfriends for it. When Chris battles with addiction, he digs into his memories from childhood when he first felt humiliated. And when Saoirse doesn’t want to settle down, she attributes her free-spirited nature to being the youngest child in her family. But what if these psychologists got it wrong?

Articles of Interest

Therapy wars: the revenge of Freud

Cheap and effective, CBT became the dominant form of therapy, consigning Freud to psychology’s dingy basement. But new studies have cast doubt on its supremacy – and shown dramatic results for psychoanalysis. Is it time to get back on the couch?

Couch Wars

Does one form of psychotherapy work better than another?

Explainer: what is psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a way of treating longstanding psychological problems that is based on the belief behaviours have underlying drivers which may be unrecognised and unconscious. With this understanding it’s possible to think about the meaning and reasons behind that behaviour and enable the possibility of change.

Freud's Drawings, from Brain to Mind

Sigmund Freud started his scientific career not with a couch, but with a scalpel. He was dissecting eels in order to understand their reproductive system. From there, he moved onto studying the structure and function of the human brain. Years later, he turned to psychology for answers to questions about the human mind that biology, alone, couldn't provide.

Inside the war tearing psychoanalysis apart: 'The most hatred I’ve ever witnessed'

A professor was accused of antisemitism. The controversy has exploded into a bigger, messier debate about the future of psychology itself.

Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis

Founded in 1980, the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis (the Institute) offers a Certificate Program in Psychoanalysis; a Licensure Qualifying Program in Psychoanalysis; a two-year Certificate Program in Trauma Studies, and a One-Year Program, recently redesigned to reflect the interconnectedness of psychoanalysis and the sociopolitical world.

Medicine: Psychoanalysis Then & Now

"We now feel we can cure the patient without his fully understanding what made him sick. We are no longer so interested in peeling the onion as in changing it." So said one of the nation's most famed psychoanalysts, attending last week's annual meeting in Chicago of the American Psychoanalytic Association, which was marking the 50th anniversary of the organized practice of psychoanalysis in the U.S.

Still Talking After All These Years

Freud is still dead, but psychoanalysis may be experiencing a rebirth.

The problem with using psychoanalysis on children

Psychoanalysis developed over the course the 20th century, and although the approach has been dismissed by many, we live in a society where there is still an obsession with “psychoanalysing” children. This inevitably labels children as a problem rather than recognising the problems that affect wider society.

What Drove Sigmund Freud to Write a Scandalous Biography of Woodrow Wilson?

The founder of psychoanalysis collaborated with a junior American diplomat to lambaste the former president.

What is Modern Psychoanalysis?

If you ask someone “What is psychoanalysis?” chances are they’ll think of Sigmund Freud, who is famous for inventing and developing the psychoanalytic approach. His work to articulate the psychoanalytic theory of motivation and the structure of the unconscious has had profound influence in the field of mental health.

What Is Psychoanalysis?

Often when people think of psychoanalysis, they picture Freud smoking a cigar and scratching his white beard. Unfortunately, such a picture gives the impression that psychoanalysis belongs to the antiquated past, repression laden Vienna, and distant intellectual theories about penis envy and the Oedipus Complex. Yikes! Psychoanalysis certainly has an image problem.

Why We Should Keep Reading Freud

Today’s psychologists find him embarrassing, but the founder of psychoanalysis had powerful insights into the way our minds work.

Resources

International Psychoanalysis

This website presents a wide variety of content that we believe will be of interest to the mental health professional community, academia, and the wider public. It provides a platform for announcements of public and professional interest, film, theater and book reviews, op ed and other opinion pieces, as well as links to meeting and conference web casts...

International Psychoanalytical Association

Our mission is to ensure the continued development of Psychoanalysis.

American Institute for Psychoanalysis

The American Institute for Psychoanalysis was founded in 1941 by Karen Horney and other psychoanalysts who passionately opposed the dogmatism that characterized psychoanalysis at the time. The AIP has remained true to the principles of its founders who emphasized avoiding conceptual rigidities, and responding to ideas, whatever their source, in a spirit of scientific and academic democracy.