Schools and Movements
Psychoanalysis
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Psychoanalysis, established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud, comprises theories and techniques to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behavior, and a talk-therapy method for treating mental disorders built from Freud's synthesis of neurology, ethnology and his own clinical case work. It split into multiple later schools, including Jungian, Lacanian and object-relations approaches.
Facts
Central QuestionHow do unconscious mental processes shape conscious thought, emotion and behavior, and can talk-based technique treat the resulting psychopathology? 1 Founded Year Cross-Tradition Connections
Rejected Here
Jung broke with Freud in 1913 over the nature of the libido, founding analytical psychology as a distinct school rather than a variant of psychoanalysis.
Adler broke with Freud's psychoanalytic circle in 1911, rejecting its emphasis on sex and libido for social, vocational and holistic factors.
Critiqued Here
Maslow argued psychoanalysis addressed only human pathology, framing humanistic psychology's 'third force' as the healthy complement Freud's system left out.
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1. Psychoanalysis
Wikimedia FoundationOverview sectionQuote, Overview section
the contents of the unconscious largely determine cognition and behavior
1. Psychoanalysis
Wikimedia FoundationOpen Questions: Can psychoanalytic claims about the unconscious be falsified?, Critics of the abuse thesis and psychoanalysis in general sectionQuote, Open Questions: Can psychoanalytic claims about the unconscious be falsified?, Critics of the abuse thesis and psychoanalysis in general section
its central assumption of three interlinked metapsychological functions (instincts, consciousness, and memory) cannot be refuted.
Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Humanistic Psychology, History sectionQuote, Associated With: Humanistic Psychology, History section
it is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half.
Wikipedia: Object Relations Theory
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Object Relations Theory, IntroductionQuote, Associated With: Object Relations Theory, Introduction
While its groundwork derives from theories of development of the ego in Freudian psychodynamics, object relations theory does not place emphasis on the role of biological drives in the formation of personality in adulthood.
Analytical psychology
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Analytical Psychology, The break with Freud sectionQuote, Associated With: Analytical Psychology, The break with Freud section
In particular, tensions manifested between him and Freud because of various disagreements, including those concerning the nature of the libido.
Wikipedia: Individual Psychology
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Individual Psychology, Adler's psychology sectionQuote, Associated With: Individual Psychology, Adler's psychology section
Adler's model departs from Freudian emphasis on sex and libido and instead focuses on how individuals evaluate and respond to their world, particularly the social, vocational, and love-related demands they encounter.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Can psychoanalytic claims about the unconscious be falsified?
Karl Popper argued psychoanalysis lacks scientific rigor because its central claims about instinct, consciousness and memory are constructed so that they cannot be refuted by any possible observation, a criticism aimed specifically at how the theory explains conscious acts after the fact. Psychoanalytic clinicians and researchers dispute this, and empirical studies of psychoanalytic psychotherapy's effectiveness report benefits for some disorders while the field's own overall efficacy remains contested, so whether the core theoretical claims (as opposed to the therapy's outcomes) are testable at all is unsettled.
What would resolve this A precise, pre-registered operationalization of a specific psychoanalytic mechanism (for example a defense mechanism's predicted behavioral signature) stated in a form that specifies in advance what observation would count against it, then tested.
Philosophy of science and clinical psychologyPsychoanalysis
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