Psychoanalysis - Overview, Psychoanalytic Theory Of Mind, Infantile Sexuality And The Oedipus Complex, Later Revisions: Mourning, Narcissism, And The Beginnings Of Object Relations

In a 1928 entry on the subject for the Handwörterbuch der Sexualwissenschaft (Concise dictionary of sexual research), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) defined psychoanalysis as "the name (1) of a procedure for the investigation of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other way, (2) of a method (based upon that investigation) for the treatment of neurotic disorders and (3) of a collection of psychological information obtained along those lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline" (Freud, vol. 18, p. 235). Freud's description understates the immense richness and complexity of his achievements in the study of the workings of the ungovernable impulses of the mind, which have had far-reaching and lasting impact on humanities thinking about itself, and whose many facets can only be hinted at here below.