In this selection of her father’s writings, Anna Freud has included, in a single volume, the essential, irreducible elements of psycho-analysis. She begins with the most appropriate of Freud’s own introductory essays, The Question of Lay Analysis, and follows the sequence of themes that he adopted: the meaning of dreams, the concept of the unconscious, instinctual and sexual life, the structure of the personality, defense mechanisms and symptom-formation. The result is a coherent and authoritative guide to psycho-analysis.