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Sigmund-Freud-Institut is the only research institute in Germany to specialize in psychoanalysis. Its focus ranges from the scientific basis concerning the extension of psychoanalytical knowledge about the unconscious life of man, his emotions and psychosocial conflicts, to effective psychoanalytical treatment of mental disorders in children – for example Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome – and adults – for example major depression. All the projects are conceptualized in an interdisciplinary way combining clinical research with neurosciences and social sciences. Supporting clinical research, the institute runs a psychoanalytical outpatients’ clinic which offers diagnostics, counselling, therapy and supervision.
Apart from clinical research experimental psychoanalytical research is also conducted. The institute maintains a laboratory to study unconscious phenomenon in perception, imaging and thinking, especially dream-activity.
Another research area of the institute is the analysis of cultural and political changes as well as crises in social reality. On the one hand research projects deal with the psychosocial consequences after social systems have broken down. Other projects focus on with processes of globalization in democracies and how individuals, families, groups and organizations cope with the loss of traditional certainties.
How unconscious conflicts are handed down to following generations has also been a subject of study, for instance regarding the relationships of Jewish descendents of Shoah survivors.
The institute has a reference library which is the most comprehensive collection in the field of psychoanalysis in German-speaking-countries. It consists of more than 22,000 volumes of predominantly German or English publications on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychosomatics as well as sociology, social psychology and cultural theory.
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