“+ noun
also psych·analysis |sik+
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary psych- + analysis; originally formed as German psychoanalyse
1. : a method of investigating (as through free association and dream analysis) psychic content and mechanisms not readily accessible to voluntary exploration by the conscious mind
2. : a method of psychotherapy especially with psychoneurotics designed to bring unconscious and preconscious material into consciousness and carried out largely through the analysis of resistance and through the establishment and analysis of a transference neurosis
3. : a body of empirical findings and a set of theories on human motivation, behavior, and personality development : metapsychology
4. : an area of psychotherapeutic practice : an institutionalized school (as founded by Sigmund Freud) of psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy
5. : a method or the practice of interpreting data obtained from nonpsychiatric sources (as from anthropology, art, literature) in the light of theories based on clinical observation