A term coined by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in 1896 that has come to take on three meanings: 1. a theory of mental function and human development as articulated by Freud, 2. an intensive method of psychotherapy that involves free association and interpretation, and 3. an approach to a range of disciplines including literature, history, and art using the psychoanalytic model of the mind.
See Ego, Id, Infantile sexuality, Infantile grandiosity, Infantile sexuality, Intrapsychic conflicts, Narcissism, Oedipal complex, Paradigm, Pleasure-pain principle, Psychodynamic theory, Reality principle, Superego