adj. relating to or describing the work and ideas of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), inventor of psychoanalytic theory: applied particularly to the school of psychiatry based on his teachings (see psychoanalysis).
A theory that emotional and allied diseases are due to a psychic injury or trauma, generally of a sexual nature, which did not produce an adequate reaction when it was received and therefore remains as a subconscious or ‘affect’ memory to trouble the patient’s mind. As an extension of this theory, Freudian treatment consists of encouraging the patient to tell everything that happens to be associated with trains of thought which lead up to this memory, thus securing a ‘purging’ of the mind from the original ‘affect memory’ which is the cause of the symptoms. This form of treatment is also called psychocatharsis or abreaction.
The general term, psychoanalysis, is applied, in the ?rst place, to the method of helping the patient to recover buried memories by free association of thoughts. In the second place, the term is applied to the body of psychological knowledge and theory accumulated and devised by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and his followers. The term ‘psychoanalyst’ has traditionally been applied to those who have undergone Freudian training, but Freud’s ideas are being increasingly questioned by some modern psychiatrists.... freudian theory
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