In the first half of the twentieth century, psychoanalysis and psychiatry became closely connected, especially in the usa. Since the 1960s, as a consequence of the development of first psychotherapeutic drugs and then of effective short-term psychotherapies, psychoanalysis has increasingly lost its central position. In the meantime, there has been a turn of the tide. While psychoanalysts are busy developing short-term psychotherapies, research into various longer-term treatments has also been started, with the validity of basic concepts being put to the test and confirmed by results of more basal sciences. There is therefore no reason to be pessimistic about the future of the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychiatry, provided ongoing scientific foundation is maintained.