Psychoanalysis

WHAT IS PSYCHOANALYSIS?

Psychoanalysis is both a theory that explains how the human psyche functions and a therapeutic practice. It was created by Sigmund Freud in 1896 and has continued to develop through the work of psychoanalysts around the world.

The writer Stefan Zweig stated that the 20th century began with two major events: Roentgen, with X-rays, was able to explore the inside of the living human body, and Sigmund Freud, with psychoanalysis, was able to explore the human psyche.

That is the essence of psychoanalysis: a scientific discipline that studies, investigates, and describes the human psyche—how it is formed, how it develops, how it is structured, and how it functions. All of this includes its healthy, pathological, and healing aspects.

We can define psychoanalysis from four perspectives, as outlined by Freud himself:

A theory of psychic functioning.
A treatment technique for curing mental illnesses.
A method of investigation.
A way of analyzing cultural and social phenomena: art, cinema, literature, and other artistic expressions.

In other words, what had previously been the domain of theologians, philosophers, anatomists, and neurologists, Freud established within psychoanalysis, turning it into a unique and autonomous scientific discipline with a new object of study: the unconscious.

The broad, ongoing, and intensive progress of psychoanalytic research and the accumulation of psychoanalytic knowledge have made it possible to apply these insights not only to various categories of mental disorders but also to psychosomatic conditions and to understanding certain aspects of social pathologies.

This development has also led to the incorporation of psychoanalytic techniques into different therapeutic settings, such as couples therapy, group therapy, child and adolescent therapy, therapy for the elderly, family therapy, and others.

In our country, psychoanalysis has gained wide recognition and has become a part of contemporary culture. For example, everyday situations such as slips of the tongue made by politicians and public figures are immediately recognized and almost always interpreted accurately. These actions have an intuitive quality and point to complex psychic mechanisms, which a psychoanalyst might describe as: unconscious mental processes, conflicting desires, mechanisms of repression, failure of repression, and the return of the repressed.

Finally, to complete this brief definition, it can be said that the powerful internal drive of psychoanalysis has led to the creation of various ways of thinking about psychoanalytic theory—approaches that in some cases have become schools of thought or theoretical frameworks. Thus, to the original Freudians, others have been added: Kleinians, Winnicottians, Ferenczians, Doltoians, the American school, Lacanians, among others—establishing the pluralism of ideas that continues to enrich and illuminate the foundations of psychoanalysis.

The differences among these ways of thinking about certain theoretical and technical issues have often led to exchanges and controversial debates. These reflect the vitality of psychoanalysis, but more importantly, they result in cross-fertilization of ideas. History has already shown that the basic principles of psychoanalysis continue to be maintained, adapted, and updated.