The Neo-Freudian psychiatrists and psychologists were a group of loosely linked American theorists of the mid-twentieth century, who were all influenced by Sigmund Freud, but who extended his theories, often in social or cultural directions. They have been defined as 'American writers who attempted to restate Freudian theory in sociological terms and to eliminate its connections with biology'.

Other Dissidents and Post-Freudians

The term Neo-Freudian is sometimes, but incorrectly, used to cover all those who at some time in their career accepted the basic tenets of Freud's theory of psychoanalysis but later dissented from it, such as Alfred Adler or Jung, figures who are perhaps better thought of as dissidents.

The 'Independent Analysts' Group of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, as distinct from the Kleinians and what are now called the Contemporary Freudians', who include figures such as Christopher Bollas, D. W. Winnicott and Adam Phillips, are - like the ego-psychologists such as Heinz Hartmann or the intersubjectivist analysts in the States - perhaps best considered of as 'different schools of psychoanalytic thought', or as 'Post-Freudians...post-Freudian developments'.

It was only in a jocular, derogative way that one might have spoken in the Eighties of 'today's nouvelle vague neo-Freudians, Kernberg and Kohut'.