One hundred years after the first major psychoanalytic work, Freud's Studies on Hysteria, was published, Richard Lasky set out to write a general overview of psychoanalytic theory and practice.

In the hundred intervening years the books and articles written on psychoanalytic theory and practice could fill a large library. Lasky, undaunted by the task, attempts to pull together and give coherence to the massive literature. Brevis esse laboro obscurus fio —is it possible to be brief and yet intelligible? Lasky succeeds admirably. The result is a rare find: an overview of mainstream psychoanalytic theory and