freudianism means freudian beliefs and practices, particularly the mechanism of psychological repression, the centrality of sexual desire to the development of the persona, and the efficacy of the "talking cure" or psychoanalytic technique.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, freudianism ranks #3,484 of 14,448 for Funniest Words, #3,554 of 14,410 for Most Ponderous Words, #7,082 of 14,423 for Most Sublime Words, #7,100 of 14,440 for Most Satisfying to Say.
Why “freudianism” is a great word
A system of psychoanalytic theory and therapeutic practice that roots human motivation in unconscious drives, particularly repressed sexual desires from childhood. From the proper name Freud (Sigmund Freud) + the suffix -ism (denoting a system, theory, or practice), first attested in 1923. Unlike Jungianism, which seeks universal archetypes and spiritual meaning in a collective unconscious, or behaviorism, which confines itself strictly to observable stimulus and response, Freudianism insists that we are strangers to ourselves, governed by desires we dare not acknowledge. It is the slip of the tongue that betrays a buried rivalry, the dream of a train entering a tunnel that the waking mind must not translate, and the patient on the leather couch speaking toward the ceiling while the analyst listens for what is absent—a system built on the profound suspicion that every human action is a confession, and that our most private rooms are rented out to tenants we have never met.
Etymology
From Freudian + -ism.
noun
- Freudian beliefs and practices, particularly the mechanism of psychological repression, the centrality of sexual desire to the development of the persona, and the efficacy of the "talking cure" or psychoanalytic technique.
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.