Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Psychoanalysis
/ˌsaɪkoʊəˈnæləsɪs/noun
Freud's method of treating mental distress by uncovering unconscious material through speech.
The Greek roots
ψυχή
psychḗ
soul, breath, life
ἀνάλυσις
análysis
a loosening apart
Literally: “an untying of the soul”
The story of the word
Freud assembled the word in 1896, and the second half is a metaphor from untying rather than from chemistry: ἀνάλυσις is what you do to a knot or a ship's moorings. English took it around 1906. ψυχή was also the Greek for butterfly, which is why ancient art gives the departing soul a pair of wings.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German → English
- First recorded
- 1900s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
psychologypsycheanalysiscatalysis
In a sentence
Four years of psychoanalysis, four mornings a week, and he still dreaded the couch.