Alain de Botton

I'm not an academic philosopher, and don't agree with the way the universities approach the subject. I'm a philosopher only in the very loose sense of someone interested in wisdom and well-being attained through reason. But I'm as interested in psychoanalysis and art as I am in philosophy.

English Writer

Sylvia Hoeks

I want to play so many different characters. I want to, like, understand so many different people, and psychoanalysis, everything. I love that about my job: getting into the character and understanding it and doing the psychoanalysis and creating that character.

Dutch Actress

Orson Welles

I don't want to forgive myself. That's why I hate psychoanalysis I think if you're guilty of something you should live with it. Get rid of it - how can you get rid of a real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.

American Actor

Janet Malcolm

Although psychoanalysis has influenced me personally, it has had curiously little influence on my writing. This may be because writers learn from other writers, not from theories.

American Writer

Noam Chomsky

I do not think psychoanalysis has a scientific basis. If we can't explain why a cockroach decides to turn left, how can we explain why a human being decides to do something?

American Activist

Albert Ellis

I thought foolishly that Freudian psychoanalysis was deeper and more intensive than other, more directive forms of therapy, so I was trained in it and practiced it.

American Psychologist

Eric Kandel

Psychoanalysis has a degree of unreliability about it. You will never know whether you've found the truth. You may find a subjective truth, but you don't know.

American Scientist

Sigmund Freud

The psychoanalysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the intimate connection between wetting the bed and the character trait of ambition.

Austrian Psychologist

John Malkovich

I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.

Diane Keaton

I said I would never go to a psychiatrist, and I spent much of my life in psychoanalysis.

American Actress

Psychoanalysis has roots in Freud’s theories; understanding his work aids comprehension of the term.

Freud's Influence

Psychoanalysis often involves exploring a person's past to reveal hidden emotions and conflicts.

Deep Exploration

Psychoanalysis is typically performed in a clinical or counseling setting by trained professionals.

Therapeutic Setting

Psychoanalysis emphasizes that unconscious thoughts have a large impact on our behavior.

Unconscious Mind

Understanding the subconscious reasons for behavior is a key goal in psychoanalysis.

Behavioral Origins

Psychoanalysis is subject to debate — not all psychologists agree on its effectiveness.

Contemporary Debate

 And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time, our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They're sucked in from other people; chiefly, if you're a man, your father, and if you're a woman, your mother. Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. No one's quite listening hard enough, but I very much believe it's true.

A kinder, gentler...

 before pioneering the discipline of psychoanalysis. He proposed that people are motivated by unconscious desires and repressed memories, and their problems can be addressed by making those motivations conscious through talk therapy.