Definitions

Freud's ideas inspired many of his followers to develop their own theories. Because they kept his fundamental belief in the importance of unconscious dynamics but broke away from certain tenets of psychoanalytic theory, we use the more general term psychodynamic to label this perspective rather than psychoanalytic. Although many psychodynamic assumptions are impossible to verify and will have to remain matters of philosophical dispute, others have generated major lines of research. Some psychologists study the processes of rationalization, denial and self-delusion, ideas that stemmed from Freud's theory that the conscious mind strives to protect itself from threatening information.

Psychology in Perspective. Carol Tavris, Carole Wade. (HarperCollins 1995). Page 25.