Editing Psychoanalysis (section)

===Research===
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2020}}
Over a hundred years of case reports and studies in the journal ''Modern Psychoanalysis'', the ''[[Psychoanalytic Quarterly]]'', the ''International Journal of Psychoanalysis'' and the ''[[Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association]]'' have analyzed the efficacy of analysis in cases of [[neurosis]] and character or [[Wiktionary:personality|personality]] problems. Psychoanalysis modified by object relations techniques has been shown to be effective in many cases of ingrained problems of intimacy and relationship (cf. the many books of Otto Kernberg).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Christopher |first1=John Chambers |last2=Bickhard |first2=Mark H. |last3=Lambeth |first3=Gregory Scott |date=October 2001 |title=Otto Kernberg's Object Relations Theory: A Metapsychological Critique |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0959354301115006 |journal=Theory & Psychology |language=en |volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=687–711 |doi=10.1177/0959354301115006 |s2cid=145583990 |issn=0959-3543|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Psychoanalytic treatment, in other situations, may run from about a year to many years, depending on the severity and complexity of the pathology.

Psychoanalytic theory has, from its inception, been the subject of criticism and controversy. Freud remarked on this early in his career, when other physicians in Vienna ostracized him for his findings that hysterical conversion symptoms were not limited to women. Challenges to analytic theory began with [[Otto Rank]] and [[Alfred Adler]] (turn of the 20th century), continued with behaviorists (e.g. [[Joseph Wolpe|Wolpe]]) into the 1940s and '50s, and have persisted (e.g. [[Alice Miller (psychologist)|Miller]]). Criticisms come from those who object to the notion that there are mechanisms, thoughts or feelings in the mind that could be unconscious. Criticisms also have been leveled against the idea of "infantile sexuality" (the recognition that children between ages two and six imagine things about procreation). Criticisms of theory have led to variations in analytic theories, such as the work of [[Ronald Fairbairn]], [[Michael Balint]], and [[John Bowlby]]. In the past 30 years or so, the criticisms have centered on the issue of empirical verification; it is difficult to substantiate the efficacy of psychoanalytic treatments in a psychiatric context.<ref>{{citation |author = Tallis RC |year = 1996 |url = http://www.human-nature.com/freud/tallis.html |title = Burying Freud |journal = Lancet |volume = 347 |pages = 669–671 |pmid = 8596386 |doi = 10.1016/S0140-6736(96)91210-6 |issue = 9002 |s2cid = 35537033 |url-access = subscription }}</ref>

Psychoanalysis has been used as a research tool in childhood development (cf. the journal ''The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child''), and has developed into a flexible, effective treatment for certain mental disturbances.<ref name="Wallerstein 2000" /> In the 1960s, Freud's early (1905) thoughts on the childhood development of [[Human female sexuality|female sexuality]] were challenged; this challenge led to major research in the 1970s and 80s, and then to a reformulation of female sexual development that corrected some of Freud's concepts.<ref>{{citation |editor = Blum HP |year = 1977 |title = Female Psychology |location = New York |publisher = International Universities Press }}</ref> Also see the various works of Eleanor Galenson, [[Nancy Chodorow]], [[Karen Horney]], [[Françoise Dolto]], [[Melanie Klein]], [[Selma Fraiberg]], and others. Most recently, psychoanalytic researchers who have integrated attachment theory into their work, including Alicia Lieberman and [[Daniel Schechter]], have explored the role of parental traumatization in the development of young children's mental representations of self and others.<ref>{{cite journal |author1 = Schechter DS |author2 = Zygmunt A |author3 = Coates SW |author4 = Davies M |author5 = Trabka KA |author6 = McCaw J |author7 = Kolodji A. |author8 = Robinson JL |year = 2007 |title = Caregiver traumatization adversely impacts young children's mental representations of self and others |journal = Attachment & Human Development |volume = 9 |issue = 3 |pages = 187–20 |doi = 10.1080/14616730701453762 |pmid = 18007959 |pmc = 2078523 }}</ref>