This term is usually used of the work of psychoanalysts, those who have taken a specifically psychoanalytic training and employ that training as their dominant mode when working with clients.
It also refers to the corpus of Freudian and post-Freudian thinking.
A second use of the term analysis is to describe the application of psychodynamic approaches to understand psychic contents that may not seem rational.
Analysis as a method of approaching the psyche has led to many creative adaptations of the original Freudian approach, most notably the innovations of Carl Jung.
Another more intriguing view of the word hearkens back to the ancient Greeks, who used the same verb to describe the loosening off of the cables holding a ship with the wind already in its sails. This optimistic interpretation is associated with the existential and Daseinsanalytical modalities.
