ABSTRACT
To the layman, psychoanalysis is mainly known as a method of treatment for neurotic, and possibly psychotic, mental disorders. Sigmund Freud certainly elaborated the theory and methods of psychoanalysis originally in order to treat patients, and he made far-reaching claims for these methods. The first of his claims was that psychoanalysis could cure mental patients of their troubles: the second was that only psychoanalysis could do this. His theory of neurosis and psychosis essentially states that the complaints with which the patient comes to the psychiatrist or psychologist are merely symptoms of some deeper, underlying disease; unless this disease is cured, there is no hope for the patient. If psychoanalysis helps some, most, or all patients in the experimental group, while the absence of psychoanalysis leaves the patients in the control group unimproved, then surely an overall success rate for the experimental over the control patient should emerge from such a trial.
