Wild Analysis

This powerful volume brings together Freud’s most significant writings on psychoanalytic method and the questions of psychoanalytic technique. The fundamental concern of these works is the complex relationship between patient and analyst. Here Freud explores both the crucial importance and the huge risks involved in patients’ transference of their emotions on to their therapist. He also shows the ambiguous dangers of ‘wild analysis’ by doctors who are insufficiently trained or offer instant solutions; looks at issues such as the length of a treatment; and offers a trenchant discussion of the controversy surrounding psychoanalysis as a medical discipline. And, in examining the tensions between the practice of psychoanalysis and its central theory - the disruptive nature of the unconscious - Freud asks, can there ever really be rules for analysis?