Analysand

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who is the focus of a psychoanalytical examination undergoes personal exploration to uncover and understand their mental processes
2. This term refers to a person in a therapeutic environment who is engaged in self-reflection and analysis of their emotional and psychological experiences
3. A person being studied in a psychoanalytic context seeks to delve into their subconscious and confront their emotional and cognitive experiences

Etymology: "Analysand" is built from "analyse" plus the suffix "-and," a Latin-derived ending that marks a word as something to be acted upon, so it describes the person undergoing the analysis rather than the one performing it. The pattern is the same one found in words like "multiplicand," the number being multiplied, and "addend," the number being added. The formation was deliberately modelled on this grammatical pattern. Because the psychoanalytic setting puts the patient in the role of the one being examined, the term gives a precise label to that position: the person whose thoughts and feelings are the material under study, as opposed to the analyst who conducts the examination.