Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Although psychoanalysis was once central to mainstream psychology, in recent years psychodynamic models of personality and psychopathology have become increasingly marginalized. The factors that combined to “disconnect” psychoanalysis from contemporary psychological science and clinical practice are examined, and strategies that can help reconnect psychoanalysis to mainstream psychology are described. These are (a) the use of nomothetic research methods to test and refine psychoanalytic concepts and (b) the communication of psychoanalytic principles and findings to colleagues, students, and members of the public. Opportunities and challenges that arise during this reconnection process are discussed, and prospects for the rebirth of a truly heuristic, integrative psychoanalysis are considered.