Today's New York Times has an eloquent opinion piece on pscyhoanalysis called "Freud's Radical Talking" by a Columbia graduate student, Benjamin Y. Fong: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/freuds-radical-talking/

Fong nicely describes how psychoanalysis provides an open field in which two (or more) sides of ourselves can be safely welcomed and heard. While psychotherapy is not psychoanalysis, that is where its roots are.  And even when psychotherapy is focused on problem-solving and coping-strategies, its value, Fong implies, runs deeper, providing open spaces for change and growth.  

Learning skills like how to overcome anxiety or manage anger are highly valuable.  And their greatest value may lie in helping us achieve a "free relation" (a term Fong takes from Martin Heidegger) not only to our anxiety or our anger but by extension to other parts of ourselves and our world.