Freud and METAanalysis

Sigmund Freud called his innovation psycholanalysis. It's slightly misleading, as the suffix psycho- doesn't refer to the general point of the analysis being beyond representable language. Thus it really should be called metaanalysis (just like the study of what's beyond physics is known as metaphysics). Meta- comes from the ancient Greek suffix meaning "beyond", so it's beyond physics or, in Freud's case, beyond language.

However you might object, well, it's not beyond analysis per se. In fact Freud is clearly using the scientific method to analyze the minds of patients. However, metaphysics is not beyond physics as in physics isnt amenable to it. On the contrary, metaphysics is the study of why physical objects behave the way they do. In the same vein then, metaanalysis can rightly be called the study of why the human mind behaves the way it does.

What do you think is a more correct terminology for Freud's general discipline and why?

I think because I took a high school course in philosopy I know a little about this. I would say simply call it analysis and drop the meta- Why? Becuase it's over-emphasis is a redundancy. Forgive me; psychoanalysis because because it has to do with the brain. Metaphysics and pyschoanalysis are two different things. To say, study the metaphysical aspects of pyschoanalysis is still a metaphysical study, and pyschoanalysis will always be what the name derives.

Since Aristotle, studies explaining how a certain field works has been known as "meta" (from the Greek root 'beyond'). He called his study of why the laws of nature or physics behave the way they do Metaphysics (some 'first mover' that caused the laws of nature). 

In modern times we use meta a lot. Metaethics is the study of why there are ethics or 'laws' of freedom (free will). Metaepistemology examines the nature of the study of knoweldge itself (hence the term metaepistemological scepticism - critiquing this discipline generally). 

I think, due to the many (innovative but different) thinkers around the globe, terms have been thrown around, and it's paramount and beneficial that we synthesize terms which have the same meaning but are different words. So when I think of psychoanalysis, then, I wonder why the term 'psycho' (from the Greek psuche meaning soul / mind) is used. It's not the analysis of the mind per se - that's the job of neuroscience and psychology among other "scientific" disciplines. Freud's field is clearly beyond these traditional scientific (yielding a truth or false result) systems. Hence, it seems clear that we should start wording his system as 'metaanalysis.'

Such a feat isn't immediate but if we habituate ourselves over time, then, I think, we will be using metaanalysis spontaneously and allowing our understanding freer rein when encountering the ever-increasing problems of our new age.

I also propose that 'Meta' is really 'dream': metaanalysis is dream analysis of course, but also metaphysics, I argue, is "dream physics" - the structure of our dream world and the laws it is governed by. Metaethics - dream ethics - were we in a dream world, how would morality function? When Plato talks about the apparent world and the world of forms or ideas, he's really referencing the two worlds of 'waking' and 'dreaming' - in dreams, in idea is converted into a vision by what he called recollection.

In any case, the topic is extremely complicated and is hotly debated today, so I'll leave it at that, but I just wanted to show the facility of a train of thought when one synthesizes the different words into one thing with the same meaning; it's merely 'maintenance work' but that's necessary and what really keeps the whole hotel - or business of scientific enquiry - running.

So that's why I respectfully disagree that it should still be called psychoanalysis