Bergler, an active member of Freud's Psychoanalytic Clinic and the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, was a prolific writer whose ideas have not always had the impact they deserve and are only intermittently heard of today. This new and welcome printing of his 1961 book makes a potent analysis of key factors that help determine the analyzability of neurosis. Central among these is masochism, often underestimated and under-exposed in many a seemingly ‘thorough’ analysis. The argument and presentation are forceful and have much to say to the contemporary psychoanalyst, while a most instructive introduction by Melvyn Iscove sets the central issue in illuminating perspective for the contemporary reader.