In this objective paper, I will try to explain psychoanalysis, its origins, talk about some authors and enumerate some criticisms that psychoanalysis has had. I will try to explain literary aspects of psychoanalysis and in the next paper, I will try to understand the application that Freud gave to this theory.

To understand what psychoanalysis is, I must mention a definition that says that as a therapy, psychoanalysis is based on the concept that individuals are unaware of the many factors that cause their behaviour and emotions.

Psychoanalytic treatment is highly individualized and seeks to show how the unconscious factors affect behaviour patterns, relationships, and overall mental health. Treatment traces the unconscious factors to their origins, shows how they have evolved and developed over the course of many years, and subsequently helps individuals to overcome the challenges they face in life.

In addition to being a therapy, psychoanalysis is a method of understanding mental functioning and the stages of growth and development. Psychoanalysis is a general theory of individual human behaviour and experience, and it has both contributed to and been enriched by many other other disciplines. Psychoanalysis seeks to explain the complex relationship between the body and the mind and furthers the understanding of the role of emotions in medical illness and health. In addition, psychoanalysis is the basis of many other approaches to therapy.

The value and validity of psychoanalysis as a theory and treatment have been questioned since its inception in the early 1900s. Critics dispute many aspects of psychoanalysis including whether or not it is indeed a science; the value of the data upon which Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, based his theories; and the method and effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatment.

Once we have a definition, I will explain the origins of psychoanalysis that, in my opinion, are important to understand it. Sigmund Freud was the first psychoanalyst and a true pioneer in the recognition of the importance of unconscious mental activity. His theories on the inner workings of the human mind, which seemed so revolutionary at the turn of the century, are now widely accepted by most schools of psychological thought. In 1896, Freud coined the term "psychoanalysis", and for the next forty years of his life, he worked on thoroughly developing its main principles, objectives, techniques and methodology. Psychoanalysis began to thrive, and by 1925, it was established around the world as a flourishing movement. Freud died in 1939 and he left a legacy that continues until today. Whereas new ideas have enriched the field of psychoanalysis and techniques have adapted and expanded over the years, psychoanalysts today, like Freud, believe that psychoanalysis is the most effective method of obtaining knowledge of the mind.

Although Freud is the most important author regarding psychoanalysis ( he is considered as the "father" of psychoanalysis ), I am going to talk now about other authors that followed the steps of Freud like Freud’s daughter, Anna, E.H. Erikson, M. Klein and H. Kohut, since I am going to talk about Freud entirely in the other paper.

First of all, I will begin with Anna Freud who followed in her father’s footsteps and became a reputable and influential expert in her own right. Her major innovations were in the field of the ego and the mechanisms of defense. She also indicates resistance to treatment as a form of defense against instinct. She theorized that the affects associated with the instinctual impulses also are defended against in the ego, for example, by the means of mastering them by putting them through a metamorphosis, which may manifest itself as emotional suppression or denial, among other things. Anna Freud also refers in her work to a notion that W. Reich called "Charakterpanzerung" or the "armor-plating of the character". This is the residual manifestation of rigorous past defenses that have been dissociated from their original conflicts. These manifestations, such as stiffness, or peculiarities of personality, such as fixed smile or arrogant behaviour, develop into permanent character traits.

Another author regarding psychoanalysis is E.H. Erikson. Erikson made an enormous contribution to and alteration of Freud’s developmental theory. He changed and extended the stages into a more complex theory extended throughout life. He also associated a "virtue" and a related developmental issue with each stage. This is specially important because the failure to resolve those issues explains many problems. The seven stages are essentially: the first, or "oral" stage has the virtue of hope and the issue of trust. The anal stage has the virtue of will and the issue of autonomy. The Oedipal stage has the virtue of purpose and the issue of initiative. The latency stage has the virtue of skill and the issue of industry. Adolescence has the virtue of fidelity and the issue of identity. The stage involving marriage and work has the virtue of love and the issue of intimacy. The stage of parenthood has the virtue of the capacity to care for others and the issue of integrity.

Other author will be M. Klein, who was an important figure in the development of psychoanalysis because she was one of the first to put greater emphasis on the pre-Oedipal stages. She wrote of critical issues during the oral and anal stages, and also of earlier Oedipal issues. She theorized that this earlier issues made "imprints" on later psychic developments. Among her central concepts was the formation / existence of depressive and paranoid positions. She was a major precursor of the modern analysts spoken of as the "object-relations school". This school of thought puts far greater emphasis than Freud on interpersonal relationships, beginning with the mother-child relationship.

Kohut is one of the central figures in the movement of "self psychology". It focuses on the formation of the sense of self as an issue independent of Freud’s structural concepts.

Finally, I would like to mention Jung, who founded the only school of analysis that has maintained a significant following. Jungian analysis has a much more spiritual foundation. It rests on Jung’s emphasis on myth and the presence of a "collective unconscious". This collective unconscious is considered to be present in all people, but is different from Freud’s in that it is not created by repression. For Jung, therein lies what makes us human.

It is interesting to point some criticisms that psychoanalysis has received. For example, the Hermeneutics thought that psychoanalysis is not a science, they say that psychoanalysis is not based on facts because the analyst does not observe the date. Instead, the analyst interprets them to fit his own ideas. Psychoanalysis cannot also be justified using physical laws of science. Therefore psychoanalysis, despite Freud’s claims, is not a science.

Grunbaum, an important critic of psychoanalysis, thought that psychoanalysis can be tested without bias. In fact, it has been proved wrong. Freud just refuses to admit that it has been proven false time and time again. Therefore, Grunbaum believes that although psychoanalysis is a science, it is a bad science that it has been proven false. Grunbaum also wrote other criticisms, as for example, he said that psychoanalytic method most probably is doomed to fail in curing mental disorders such as neurosis. Therefore psychoanalysts should turn to epidemological and experimental research to be able to find answers to curing these disorders. He also said that in psychoanalysis, free association is not free or independent since this thought may easily be contamined by the psychoanalyst. This contamination occurs due to the fact that a psychoanalyst is trying to fit the patient’s problem with Freud’s theory.

Although Grunbaum was a critic, he also received criticisms, Edelson and Spence answered him regarding the two last statements I have mentioned.

Edelson said that while Grunbaum is correct in pointing out that psychoanalyst should do more epidemological and experimental research, he is not justified in claiming that the scientific community should completely abandon intaclinical research of psychoanalysis. There is much to be learned from the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, and it would be premature for the scientists to stop working on this field. While not all the results may agree with Freud’s theory, it certainly can lead to new information on the subject.

Spence, regarding the other statement of Grunbaum, said that Grunbaum cannot make the statement that psychoanalyst use free association to lead their patients, since he had information of only case, where the psychoanalyst lead on his patient. However, one such case does not mean that all psychoanalysts are like this.

Popper also made a criticism, he said that in order for something to be a science, it must be capable of being tested objectively. Since Freud twists his theory to fit all problems which critics bring to his knowledge, psychoanalysis is not falsifiable and therefore, not a science.

Finally, Nottumo and McHugh said that Freud’s ideas and psychoanalysis are not sciences that can be proved using scientific laws. However, Freudian ideas may have some validity in the practical sense, making it into a pseudoscience.

To finish this paper, I will concentrate on the literary aspects of psychoanalysis, that is to say, to understand psychoanalysis as a literary theory.

Departing from psychoanalysis, philosophy and literature acquire new features and a new semantic and significant redistribution.What most attracts the attention of the general psychoanalytic approach, it is not the conflict between what is real and what is reality or between cultural reality and biological reality, what most attracts the attention is the way that psychoanalysis works at the relationship between the individual and the "phenomenic reality".

We have to point out that the individual is obliged to alienate from reality and to shelter in an own construction that has born as protection in relation to reality and instinct. And that shelter could be literature, the individual model the literature as a shelter from reality, as a way to run away from reality.

Psychoanalysis is related to mental health, to the way that people acts and the individual will find a cure to the disorder caused by the relationship between body and mind and will find some kind of balance ( not in a conscious sense ), when he or she creates a fiction ( fiction understood in terms of literature ) that permits him or her to subsist. We say that the act of creation is not in a conscious sense because the individual can only create a fiction of balance, starting from the dynamics of the "repressed" and the return of the repressed. We will see the Freud’s point of view regarding the repressed, in the next paper.

Literature is an essential medium for the existence. It is an activity that is pre-registered in the way of functioning of the individual. It could adopt the institutional form of "literature" or not.

We create an own world ( I will talk about substitution to refer to this own world ) with regard to a reality that do not like us. But this substitution cannot wipe out what has impressed the individual, on the contrary, it repeats it, so the escape is only an strategic movement. You escape but you escape to return in different conditions, building, recycling. Repetition explains the fact that literature is pre-registered in the psychic structure of the individual.

The relationship between literature and psychoanalysis can be sumed up with this sentence: "literature is pre-registered in the psychic geography and in the individual’s behaviour, beyond its incorporation to an institutional register or to an specific material base".

Literature, as it can be seen , intend to liberate the repressed side of the individual through fiction. Literature take the psychoanalysis’ assumptions and with these assumptions, helps the individual to liberate himself through writing, through fiction.

In conclusion, psychoanalysis is a term that can be understood as a general theory of the culture, capable of explaining any phenomenon. In this paper, I have tried to mention some aspects of psychoanalysis, some authors and the influence that psychoanalysis has over literature.