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<!-- Although [[dream]]s are described by [[Freud]] as "the royal road to the unconscious," (1900) it should be noted that the [[psychoanalyst]]'s raw material is not the [[unconscious]] itself (which is by definition inaccesible), but material that has already been shaped by the [[dream-work]]. -->
The central factor in the [[analytic treatment]] is the [[transference]] that allows [[unconscious]] or [[repressed]] material to be reactualized in verbal form rather than reproduced in [[symptom]]s, and [[projection|projected]] onto the [[analyst]]. In a classic [[Freud]]ian [[psychoanalysis]], the [[analysand]] has daily sessions of [[analysis]], each lasting fifty minutes (the so-called 'analytic hour'); the payment of fees is held to have great symbolic importance. [[Freud]] never claimed that his method was a universal panacea, but once remarked with typically pessimistic wit that it could transform "hysterical misery" into "common unhappiness."<ref>1893-5.</ref> -->
Although [[psychoanalysis]] is widely practiced and has had an important influence on related therapeutic methods, it has never been defined in either medical or legal terms. The profession is self-regulated and its standards of practice are defined by the various national associations recognized by the [[International Psycho-Analytical Association]]. The would-be [[psychoanalyst]] undertakes a personal [[analysis]] before embarking upon a rigorous [[training]] [[analysis]] designed to promote a recognition of the importance of [[transference]] and [[counter-transference]]. Qualified [[analysts]] normally work under the supervision of their seniors, and usually undertake at least one "second analysis." The first generation of psychoanalysts were, like [[Freud]] himself, doctors of medicine, but suitably qualified non-medical or lay analysts were admitted to the profession from the 1920s onwards.<ref>Freud. 1926a.</ref> The desirability or otherwise of medical qualifications is a matter for the various national associations. The question of the scientific nature of [[psychoanalysis]] remains controversial.
[[Freud]]'s own career was punctuated by a series of breaks with colleagues to whom he had once been close, and the history of the psychoanalytic movement is one of splits and schisms as well as of international expansion. All the major tendencies within contemporary psychoanalysis claim a [[Freudian]] ancestry, but take as their stating-point different periods in his work or different aspects of his theories. Very schematically, the main post-Freudian currents within [[psychoanalysipsychoanalysis]] are [[ego-psychology]], [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]], [[object-relations theory]] and [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]].
==Jacques Lacan==
[[Lacan]] trained initially as a [[psychiatrist]], and turned to [[psychoanalysis]] to help him with his [[psychiatric]] research. This then led [[Lacan]] to train as a [[psychoanalyst]] himself in the 1930s. From then on, until his [[death]] in 1981, he dedicated himself to practicing as an [[analyst]] and developing [[psychoanalytic theory]]. In the process, [[Lacan]] constructed a highly original way of discussing [[psychoanalysis]] which both reflected and determined an original way of conducting the [[treatment]]; in this sense it is thus possible to speak of a specifically [[Lacanian]] form of [[psychoanalytic treatment]]. However, [[Lacan]] never admits that he has created a distinctive "[[Lacanian]]" form of [[psychoanalysis]]. On the contrary, when he describes his own approach to [[psychoanalysis]], he speaks only of "[[psychoanalysis]]," thus implying that his own approach is the only authentic form of [[psychoanalysis]], the only one which is truly in line with [[Freud]]'s approach. Thus the three major non-[[Lacanian]] [[school]]s of [[psychoanalytic theory]] ([[Kleinian psychoanalysis]], [[Ego-psychology]], [[Object-relations theory]]) are all, in [[Lacan]]'s view, deviations from authentic [[psychoanalysis]] whose errors his own [[return to Freud]] is designed to correct.
From the very beginning, [[Lacan]] argues that [[psychoanalytic theory]] is a [[scientific]] rather than a [[religious]] mode of [[discourse]], with a specific object. Attempts to apply concepts developed in psychoanalytic theory to other objects cannot claim to be doing "applied psychoanalysis," since [[psychoanalytic theory]] is not a general master discourse but the theory of a specific situation.<ref>{{Ec}} p. 747</ref> [[Psychoanalysis]] is an autonomous discipline; it may borrow concepts from many other disciplines, but this doe snotmeant does not meant that it is dependent on any of them, since it reworks these concepts in a unique way. Thus psychoanalysis is not a brance of [[psychology]], nor of medicine, nor of [[philosophy]], nor of [[linguistics]], and it is certainly not a form of psychotherapy, since its aim is not to "cure" but to articulate truth.
