 | Psychoanalysis: Encyclopedia II - Psychoanalysis - History
Psychoanalysis - History
Psychoanalysis was first devised in Vienna in the 1890s by Sigmund Freud, a neurologist interested in finding an effective treatment for patients with neurotic or hysterical symptoms. As a result of talking with these patients, Freud came to believe that their problems stemmed from culturally unacceptable, thus repressed and unconscious, desires and fantasies of a sexual nature. As his theory developed, he included desires and fantasies of an aggressive nature as well. Freud considered these aspects of life instinctive drives, Libidinal Energy/Eros and the Death Instinct/Thanatos. Freud's description of Libido included all creative, life-furthering instincts. The Death Instinct represented an instinctive drive to return to a state of calm, or non-existence. Since Freud's day, psychoanalysis has developed in many ways, especially as a study of the personal, interpersonal, and intersubjective sense of self.
Prominent current schools of psychoanalysis include ego psychology, which emphasizes defense mechanisms and unconscious fantasies; self psychology, which emphasizes the development of a stable sense of self through mutually empathic contacts with other humans; Lacanian psychoanalysis, which integrates psychoanalysis with semiotics and Hegelian philosophy; analytical psychology, which has a more spiritual approach; object relations theory, which stresses the dynamics of one's relationships with internal, fantasized, others; interpersonal psychoanalysis, which accents the nuances of interpersonal interactions; and relational psychoanalysis, which combines interpersonal psychoanalysis with object-relations theory. Although these schools have dramatically different theories, most of them continue to stress the strong influence of self-deception and the influence a person's past has on their current mental life.
A few of the most influential psychoanalysts are Karen Horney, Jacob Arlow, Wilfred Bion, Charles Brenner, Erik Erikson, Ronald Fairbairn, Sandor Ferenczi, Sigmund Freud, Andre Green, Heinz Hartmann, Carl Jung, Otto Kernberg, Melanie Klein, Heinz Kohut, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Hans Loewald, Margaret Mahler, Stephen A. Mitchell, David Rapaport, Roy Schafer, Daniel N. Stern, Neville Symington, Donald Winnicott, Theodor Reik, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Slavoj Zizek.
Other related archives1890s, Alfred Adler, Analysis of Subjective Logics, Anna Freud, Carl Jung, Defence mechanism, Delphian, Donald Winnicott, Dreams, E. Fuller Torrey, Erik Erikson, Erik H. Erikson, Ernest Gellner, Eros, Freudian psychology, George Klein, Harry Stack Sullivan, Hegelian, Heinz Hartmann, Heinz Kohut, Important publications in psychoanalysis & psychotherapy, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Karen Horney, Karl Popper, Lacanian, Luce Irigaray, Margaret Mahler, Melanie Klein, Otto Kernberg, Pages needing expert attention, Paul Ricoeur, Peter Medawar, Psychoanalytic theory, Psychotherapy, Ronald Fairbairn, Sand Tray Therapy, Sandor Ferenczi, Sigmund Freud, Slavoj Zizek, Stephen A. Mitchell, Thais, Thanatos, The Cochrane Library, Theodor Reik, Wilfred Bion, Wilhelm Reich, Zen, aggressive, analytical psychodrama, analytical psychology, art therapy, childcare, clinical psychology, cognitive behavior therapy, counselors, creative writing, cultures, education, ego psychology, empathic, est, free association, games, hermeneutics, humanistic psychology, hysterical, ideas, instinctive drives, interpersonal psychoanalysis, judgment, literary criticism, mainstream, medical, medicine, meditative, movement, neurosis, neurotic, object relations theory, patient, personality, precepts, psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychoanalysts, psychodynamic psychotherapy, psychologists, psychotherapy, psychotic, relational psychoanalysis, self, semiotics, sexual, storytelling, symptoms, techniques, theories, therapist, toys, transference, unconscious
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