Psychoanalytic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Connected to the therapeutic framework that investigates unconscious desires and their role in shaping behavior
2. Relating to a method of therapy that explores the influence of unconscious processes on thoughts, emotions, and behaviors
3. Pertaining to a psychological approach that examines the hidden motives and meanings behind actions through dream analysis and free association

Etymology: Freud did not invent the word "psychoanalysis" to name his method alone; the term describes a method of analysing the psyche, built from two Greek roots. The first, "psūkhē" in ancient Greek, meant "breath", "life" or "soul", and it gave modern English the prefix "psycho-". The second, "analytic", comes from the Greek "analuein", meaning "to loosen up" or "to take apart", which is the same idea behind "analysis" in chemistry or mathematics. Put together, "psychoanalytic" describes anything relating to the method of taking apart the mind to understand its hidden workings. Because the unconscious was the central focus of that method, the adjective came to mean "of the unconscious" in everyday use. The word is a straightforward compound of "psycho-" and "analytic", so its meaning follows directly from its parts.

Synonyms: psychological, therapeutic, analytical, counseling, mental

Antonyms: non-analytical, unpsychological, untherapeutic, non-therapeutic, irrational