psychoanalyze

American  

[sahy-koh-an-l-ahyz] / ˌsaɪ koʊˈæn lˌaɪz /

especially British, psychoanalyse

verb (used with object)

psychoanalyzed, psychoanalyzing

1. to investigate or treat by psychoanalysis.

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Other Word Forms

• psychoanalyzer
  noun

Etymology

Origin of psychoanalyze

First recorded in 1910–15; psycho- + analyze

Explanation

To psychoanalyze is to use a particular kind of psychiatric therapy to treat mental illness or disorders. When doctors psychoanalyze patients, they encourage discussion of their feelings, childhood, and dreams. If a therapist psychoanalyzes you, you'll probably sit in a chair or lie on a couch while you talk about your feelings. A doctor who practices this kind of therapy is called a psychoanalyst, and her goal may be to help you realize the unconscious conflicts that make it hard for you to feel happy. The first person to psychoanalyze a patient was the Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud, in the 1890s.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

psychoanalyze psychoanalyzed psychoanalyzing

“I don’t psychoanalyze the people who talk to me, just like I don’t psychoanalyze myself, thank God. Which you want me to do, I know, and I’m not going to.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025

And psychoanalyze all the movies on a Freudian level.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2025

Parson says she was acutely aware of the challenge of illustrating the interior lives of the women, but did not set out to psychoanalyze them in movement.

From Washington Times ● Dec. 9, 2022

And she will psychoanalyze me, telling me I have mental problems.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 13, 2022

To psychoanalyze my grandmother’s heart palpitations: they were the manifestations of grief.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

The making of this classic drama is a story that’s been told, retold, psychoanalyzed and strip-mined for leftovers — see “The Godfather: The Corleone Family Cookbook,” just one of a library’s worth of spinoff books.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 22, 2021

Lessing got her new foster daughter into another school and paid for her to be psychoanalyzed.

From New York Times ● Jun. 10, 2015

Her Olive is a straight-backed, grim-mouthed, clear-eyed New England woman of the sort who is, for better and worse, being psychoanalyzed, medicated and self-helped out of existence.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2014

That’s what happens when your choices are relentlessly questioned and ridiculed, your past probed and psychoanalyzed in the tabloids.

From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2014

Heylmun and Civille have done the same thing—only they haven’t psychoanalyzed their feelings; they’ve psychoanalyzed their feelings for mayonnaise and Oreo cookies.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

Briefing reporters ahead of the summit, senior E.U. officials readily acknowledged that, unable to draw on hard facts to predict Mr. Orban’s next move, they’ve resorted to psychoanalyzing him.

From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2024

We quite properly try to avoid psychoanalyzing prominent newsmakers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 19, 2022

There's now an entire cottage industry built around psychoanalyzing these two: What do they want?

From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2021

So by the time I was making the feature, I was psychoanalyzing that specific moment when I was at the end of college.

From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2020

Finally, we interview linguist Lauren Collister about whether we’re just psychoanalyzing all of our typing habits for no reason, or if there’s real research around this topic.

From The Verge ● Nov. 7, 2018