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psychoa'nalysis. Also with hyphen and (rare) as psychanalysis. [ad. Fr. psychoanalyse (S. Freud 1896, in Rev. Neurologique IV. 166): see psycho- and analysis. Freud earlier used psychische analyse and klinischpsychologische analyse (Neurol. Centralbl. (1894) XIII. 364). ]
a. A therapeutic method originated by Freud for treating disorders of the personality or behaviour by bringing into a patient's consciousness his unconscious conflicts and fantasies (which are attributed chiefly to the development of the sexual instinct) through the free association of ideas, analysis and interpretation of dreams and parapraxes, etc., and allowing him to relive them by transference.
b. A theory of personality and psychical life derived from this, based on concepts of the ego, id, and super-ego, the conscious, pre-conscious, and unconscious levels of the mind, and the repression of the sexual instinct; more widely, a branch of psychology dealing with the unconscious.
psychoanalysis (psychanalyse)
Psychoanalysis is the theory and practice initiated by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) founded on the discovery of the unconscious. Freud distinguishes between psychoanalysis as (i) a method for investigating unconscious mental processes, (ii) a method for treating neurotic disorders, and (iii) a set of theories about the mental processes revealed by the psychoanalytic method of investigation and treatment (Freud, 1923a: SE XVIII, 235). The word 'psychoanalysis' on its own is therefore ambiguous, since it can refer to psychoanalysis as a practice, or to psychoanalysis as a theory, or to both. In this dictionary, when it is necessary to avoid this ambiguity, the term 'psychoanalytic treatment' is used to refer to psychoanalysis as a practice and the term 'psychoanalytic theory' is used to refer to psychoanalysis as a body of thought.
