Today's psychoanalysis is very different from our grandparents' time.  Ancient narrower focuses have been cast off in favor of a broad investigation of all of life's feelings, relationships, and issues.  The cartoon image of the silent analyst is gone.  Today’s psychoanalysts privilege active conversation between the two people in the room.

But what remains unique about psychoanalytic treatment is its foundational idea: that talking about life with no limits, manuals, or workbooks, and looking beyond the surface for the meaning in one's thoughts and actions, creates an unparalleled opportunity for lasting growth.  To quote Jonathan Shedler, the co-developer of the Shedler-Westen psychological assessment test, "When psychoanalytic treatment is successful, it is not just symptoms that change, the person changes."  New research findings confirm that this statement is evidence-based.

The Rebirth of Psychoanalysis 
 
Psychoanalysis is back. New research evidence has confirmed that it has superior therapeutic results and unique lifelong value.  A 2019 survey also found that the clinical practice of psychoanalysis has undergone vast changes, making it far more widely available to people with limited financial or time resources.

Psychoanalytic therapy is the only treatment proven to have results that keep growing over a lifetime.

Contrary to popular myth, psychoanalytic (also called "psychodynamic") therapy is strongly evidence-based.  While both psychoanalytic treatment and the popular CBT therapy have equal outcomes over the short-term (1,2), uniquely, only psychoanalytic therapy has results that continue to improve even after the end of treatment (3,4,5,6,7,8,9).  This makes sense since, rather than focusing only on a specific problem with exercises to combat it, psychoanalytic treatment addresses underlying emotional sources of current symptoms, which must be resolved to achieve lasting, long term results.  (And to do this work with the underlying complexity of current symptoms, psychoanalysts have by far the longest training of any mental health professional -- typically another decade or so after they are licensed as therapists and doctors.)

The 2019 Survey
A 2019 national poll of 400 psychoanalysts (13) showed the practice of psychoanalysis has undergone enormous changes.  Contrary to the belief that psychoanalysts treat people only 3 or more sessions per week -- a view that greatly underestimates the availability of this treatment for most people -- 96% of respondents said that they regularly conduct therapy either once or twice per week.  70% of analysts said they've been treating patients at these frequencies for at least 10 years.

The survey asked whether analysts were able to apply the same depth of knowledge and understanding to patients who were seen less frequently as they did in traditional, more intensive psychoanalyses.  100% of the analysts said they were able to bring the same expertise to these treatments, enabling the achievement of deeper awareness and mastery characteristic of traditional psychoanalysis itself.

Unlike the belief that psychoanalysts require that patients lie on a couch, actual practice in 2019 is that the decision to lie on a couch or sit in a chair is purely a matter of a patient's preference.  Indeed, 73% of analysts reported that they practice long-distance therapy via telephone or Internet video connections, underscoring the current psychoanalytic view that it is the experience of confidentially talking together and seeking underlying, out-of-awareness (unconscious) themes, that makes a treatment psychoanalytic, not the furniture or technology employed.  

The survey also found that the stereotype of the silent analyst is extinct.  98% of analysts described themselves as speaking regularly or often and, as with other popular misconceptions, almost half said this had been true for at least 10 years.

Conclusion
Today's psychoanalysis is very different from our grandparents' time.  Ancient narrower focuses have been cast off in favor of a broad investigation of all of life's feelings, relationships, and issues.  The cartoon image of the silent analyst is gone.  Today’s psychoanalysts privilege active conversation between the two people in the room.
But what remains unique about psychoanalytic treatment is its foundational idea: that talking about life with no limits, manuals, or workbooks, and looking beyond the surface for the meaning in one's thoughts and actions, creates an unparalleled opportunity for lasting growth.  To quote Jonathan Shedler, the co-developer of the Shedler-Westen psychological assessment test, "When psychoanalytic treatment is successful, it is not just symptoms that change, the person changes."  New research findings confirm that this statement is evidence-based.
--  Psychoanalysis Now*
 
[This press release has been endorsed by The American Psychoanalytic Association.]
 
References
 
1. Steinert, C et al. 2017, American Journal of Psychiatry 
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.17010057.
2. Baardseth et al 2013, Clinical Psychology Review, v. 33(3).
3.  American J Psychiatry 2013, 170 (9):1041–50.
4.  Journal of Psychological Therapies in Primary Care 2015, 4:47–59.
5.  Johnsen, T & Friborg, O. 2015 Psychological Bulletin.
6.  American Journal of Psychiatry 2006; 163(11):1905-17.
7.  Journal of the American Medical Association 2008; 300: 1551-1565.
8.  American J Psychiatry 2006; 163(11):1905-17.
9.  Summaries are also in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry and the Cochrane Review.  
10.  Neuropsychoanalysis 2018: 1-14. 10.1080/15294145.2018.1535279.
11.  Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Assoc 2001, vol. 49 no. 1 103-111.
12.  Simons et al. Developmental Psychology, 2018.
​
* Psychoanalysis Now is an organization of 125 psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists whose goal is education of the public about today's psychoanalysis.