Evolution of Study

Historically, the evolution of psychoanalytic psychology originated with
Freud’s clinical observations of the work conducted by the famous French
neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his collaborations on the treatment of
hysteria neurosis with Breuer. The publication of Studies in Hysteria marked
the birth of psychoanalysis because it illustrated a theory of hysteria, a therapy
of catharsis, and an analysis of unconscious motivation. Between 1900
and 1920, Freud made innumerable contributions to the field. His major
clinical discoveries were contained in the publications Die Traumdeutung
(1900; The Interpretation of Dreams, 1913) and Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie
(1905; Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory, 1910; also translated as
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1949) as well as in various papers on
therapy, case histories, and applications to everyday life. During this time,
Freud began his international correspondence with people such as Jung.
He also invited a select group of individuals to his home for evening discussions;
these meetings were known as the psychological Wednesday society.
Eventually, these meetings led to the establishment of the Vienna Psychoanalytical
Society, with Adler as its president, and the First International
Psychoanalytical Congress, with Jung as its president. In 1909, Freud, Jung,
and others were invited by President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University to
come to the United States to deliver a series of introductory lectures on
psychoanalysis. This momentous occasion acknowledged Freud’s achievements
and gave him international recognition. In subsequent years, Freud
reformulated his theory and demonstrated how psychoanalysis could be applied
to larger social issues.

Trained in psychoanalysis by Anna Freud, Erikson followed in Sigmund
Freud’s footsteps by supporting and extending his psychosexual theory of
development with eight stages of psychosocial identity. Among the members
of the original psychoanalytic group, Adler was the first to defect from the
Freudian school, in 1911. Protesting Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex,
Adler founded what he called individual psychology. Two years later, in
1913, Jung parted company with Freud to establish analytical psychology; he
objected to Freud’s belief that all human behavior stems from sex. With
Horney’s publications New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939) and Our Inner Conflicts:
A Constructive Theory of Neurosis (1945), it became quite clear that her ideas only remotely resembled Freud’s. Objecting to a number of Freud’s
major tenets, she attributed the development of neurosis and the psychology
of being feminine to social, cultural, and interpersonal influences. Similarly,
Sullivan extended psychoanalytic psychology to interpersonal phenomena,
arguing that the foundations of human nature and development
are not biological but rather cultural and social.