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The would-be patient considering analysis faces a bewildering prospect. If he has no special training in the field, he has to find a way to make momentous decisions. His information about analysis may be limited to movies and cocktail party conversations. He may have a variety of disturbing preconceptions, and may not know how or with whom to check them out. He wants to know what he is getting himself into, and with whom; he wants to know how to tell a helpful doctor from a charlatan.
The Talking Cure is Joseph Lichtenberg's guidebook for the layman considering analysis. In a compact volume written in plain English, he walks the reader through the steps of thinking about analysis, finding an analyst, and making a decision on analysis. He then sketches out something of the experience of analysis itself. At each step he tries to anticipate and answer the questions and fears of the prospective analysand. He does a commendable job in voicing at least some of the commoner concerns of people approaching analysis; that he is not entirely successful in answering them, is an indication of how deceptively difficult a task it is. In reviewing his effort, I have tried both to read it as an analyst, and to anticipate the reaction of a lay reader considering analysis.
Lichtenberg describes his audience as two disparate groups. The first is potential analysands, who want to know what to expect from analysis; the second is students and practitioners in a variety of fields, who are not necessarily considering analysis, but who want a synopsis, or a complement to their more academic exposure to analysis. The body of the book is addressed to the former group. He announces his intention to answer the questions: 'How … does one decide on psychoanalysis as a treatment? Who and what is an analyst? How does one find one?' (pp. xi–xii). Comparing analysis to a trip to a foreign country, he will also consider, 'What are its major attractions? Its unique features? Its costs?