ABSTRACT
Fifty years ago, psychoanalysis played a predominant role in clinical psychology and psychiatry. Today, while still influential, its theory and practice have become relatively marginal. Its niche as the most important method of psychological therapy has been largely filled by CBT. Several problems are responsible for this decline. The first is that psychoanalytic theory has had difficulty fitting its model into contemporary theory and research in psychology. By and large, papers on psychoanalysis rarely appear in non-psychoanalytic journals, while the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association almost entirely focus on theoretical reviews or case histories. Little effort has been made to integrate psychodynamic theory into broader models of gene-environment interactions that have now become standard in developmental psychology. A second reason concerns the expense of psychoanalytic therapy, making it inaccessible to all but a few of those who seek mental health treatment.
