精神分析学はその創始から、人間心理の仕組みを解明する画期的な理論であるともてはやされてきました。読者が治療を受けるとしたら、それはどのようなものであるか…患者と医師の両方をあっと言わせ得ることや、潜在的利益を明らかにしつつ、現代の精神分析について案内します。一方で、これまでに指摘されてきた問題点やリスク、批判にも言及します。
　　

• Looks at the contemporary uses and experiences of psychoanalysis
• Offers an accessible, brief overview of the history of psychoanalysis, its different contemporary manifestations, and how far the discipline has moved on from Freud
• Introduces the key theories, personalities, and ideas from the field
• Provides a balanced coverage of European and American developments in psychoanalysis with vivid clinical illustrations and stories

  
Since its inception, psychoanalysis has been hailed as a revolutionary theory of how the mind works, whilst some of its ideas such as the Oedipus complex have become part of everyday conversation. In Psychoanalysis: A Very Short Introduction, Daniel Pick offers a lucid, lively, and wide-ranging survey of psychoanalysis. This book offers the reader a flavour of what it might be like to enter treatment, and suggests the possible surprises that can await both analyst and patient, as well as the potential benefits. 
  
Yet whilst Freud's writings have shaped the way many of us understand dreams, desires, and destructiveness, as well as anxieties, blunders, and guilt, numerous critics have warned of the dangerous methods and time-bound assumptions of psychoanalysis, doubted the efficacy of its drawn-out methods, and dismissed its core claims as pseudo-science. Looking at modern ideas of the self, exploring the nature of unconscious aspects of relationships, and considering how psychoanalysis has evolved, Pick ponders the particular challenges now facing the analytic profession, and shows why psychoanalysis remains an important resource for investigating the mind, its creative functioning and many afflictions.