psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis Definition in APA :

Psychoanalysis: An approach to the mind, personality, psychological disorders, and psychological treatment originally developed by Sigmund Freud at the beginning of the 20th century.

The hallmark of psychoanalysis is the assumption that much mental activity is unconscious and that understanding people requires interpreting the unconscious meaning underlying their overt, or manifest, behavior. Psychoanalysis (often shortened to analysis) focuses primarily, then, on the influence of such unconscious forces as repressed impulses, internal conflicts, and childhood traumas on the mental life and adjustment of the individual. The foundations on which classical psychoanalysis rests are:

(a) the concept of infantile sexuality;

(b) the Oedipus complex;

(d) the pleasure principle and the reality principle;

(e) the threefold structure of the psyche into id, ego, and superego;

and

(f) the central importance of anxiety and defense mechanisms in neurotic reactions.

https://dictionary.apa.org/psychoanalysis