One hundred years after Sigmund Freud’s lectures in America: towards an integration of psychoanalytic theories and techniques within psychiatry

Abstract

The impact of Sigmund Freud’s lectures in America in 1909 is discussed. Some of the roots of psychoanalysis and their contemporary relevance are addressed: neurological ideas, the discussions of the sexologists, and the degeneration theories at the turn of the twentieth century. Factors which led to the dominance of psychoanalysis in psychiatry included, in particular, its arguments against the hopelessness of degeneracy theories; yet, by isolating itself from mainstream academic psychiatry and psychology, organized psychoanalysis itself contributed to its own subsequent marginalization. In order to re-integrate itself with mainstream psychiatry, psychoanalysis needs to appreciate the importance of systematic demonstrations of the therapeutic power of psychodynamic/psychoanalytic concepts and techniques when caring for individuals.