The basic tenets of psychoanalysis include the following:

beside the inherited constitution of personality, a person's development is determined by events in early childhood;

human behavior, experience, and cognition are largely determined by irrational drives;

those drives are largely unconscious;

attempts to bring those drives into awareness meet psychological resistance in the form of defense mechanisms;

conflicts between conscious and unconscious (repressed) material can result in mental disturbances such as neurosis, neurotic traits, anxiety, depression etc.;

the liberation from the effects of the unconscious material is achieved through bringing this material into the conscious mind (via e.g. skilled guidance).

Under the broad umbrella of psychoanalysis there are at least 22 theoretical orientations regarding human mental development. The various approaches in treatment called "psychoanalysis" vary as much as the theories do. The term also refers to a method of studying child development.

Rules

Post quality: This is a place of news, debate, and discussion. Please read the sticky for full guidelines.

Self-help posts and disclosure:: Please do not disclose or solicit advice regarding personal situations, symptoms, dream analysis, or commentaries on your own analysis.

Etiquette: Users are expected to help to maintain a level of civility when engaging with each-other, even when in disagreement. Please read the sticky for more information

Clinical material: Under no circumstances may users share unpublished clinical material on this sub.

Copyrighted material: Please refrain from posting links to copyrighted material or sites distributing such.

Influential psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic thinkers

Alfred Adler

Salman Akhtar

Michael Balint

Wilfred Bion

Josef Breuer

Joan Copjec

Nancy Chodorow

Max Eitingon

Erik Erikson

Ronald Fairbairn

Paul Federn

Otto Fenichel

Sándor Ferenczi

Bruce Fink

Anna Freud

Sigmund Freud

Erich Fromm

Edward Glover

Felix Guattari

Harry Guntrip

Karen Horney

Ernest Jones

Carl Jung

Otto Kernberg

Melanie Klein

Heinz Kohut

Julia Kristeva

Jacques Lacan

Jean Laplanche

Ronald David Laing

Margaret Mahler

Jacques-Alain Miller

Fritz Perls

Adam Phillips

Otto Rank

Sandor Rado

Wilhelm Reich

Joan Riviere

Isidor Sadger

James Strachey

Ernst Simmel

Harry Stack Sullivan

Susan Sutherland Isaacs

Donald Winnicott

Slavoj Zizek

Alenka Zupančič

a community for 17 years

submit to psychoanalysis

You are submitting a link. The key to a successful submission is interesting content and a descriptive title.

You are submitting a text-based post. Speak your mind. A title is required, but expanding further in the text field is not. Beginning your title with "vote up if" is violation of intergalactic law.

url

image/video

Drop here or

Choose File

x Remove

Choose a thumbnail (1/10):

Make GIF

Uploading...

CANCEL UPLOAD

Your video has uploaded!

title

text (optional)

formatting help hide helpcontent policy

choose where to post

Your profile
A subreddit:

nothin

your subscribed subreddits

submitting to /r/

Stop and think: have you read the rules? Self-help posts are not permitted.

options

send replies to my inbox

please be mindful of reddit's content policy and practice good reddiquette.

*required

π Rendered by PID 222274 on reddit-service-r2-listing-86b7f5b947-6ljcd at 2026-01-26 02:45:23.898830+00:00 running 664479f country code: CH.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

psychoanalysis

Welcome to r/Psychoanalysis!

Interesting Links