Psychoanalysis is not only the oldest, most comprehensive and most thoroughly researched psychotherapeutic procedure& it is also a theory and a method from which many decisive stimuli towards the development of enlightened and reflective consciousness emerged during the twentieth century. Its critical ideas have led to major cultural changes. Will it be able to maintain this role in the twenty-first century as well, or will it come to be regarded as superfluous due to developments in neurobiology and the cognitive sciences?This volume brings out why psychoanalytic thinking will still continue to be central to human experience and action and why it is likely to become even more important& although it will also continue to face considerable resistance.

Emeritus Professor Wolfgang Mertens was formerly Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychoanalysis in the Department of Psychology at the University of Munich.