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This small volume is in two parts, the first being an abbreviated account of the author's personal analysis. The purpose of the book is to alleviate some of the anxiety and suspicion of those about to enter analysis, or those who may be considering it. Her analysis deals in part with some of her motives for becoming an analyst and infers that other analysts may have similar motives. However, the greater part is concerned with her progress in analysis, and by means of quotations of interchanges between herself and her analyst she describes the process of analysis in unremarkable terms. It is almost “light” reading, reassuring—the author's stated purpose being to “whet the appetite” of the reader to pursue more of the insights through his own self-explorations.
The second half of the book describes and explains some basic psychoanalytic principles, sketches the course of normal development and illustrates the dynamic nature of the first year of life and its relevance for later development and for “health” or “neurosis” or “psychosis.” The author also pleads the case of the analyst and hopes for greater acceptance on the part of physicians, of psychoanalysis and of analysts.
The author's style is casual and unpretentious; the atmosphere is created of an engaging conversation rather than a scholarly discourse. But that is the author's purpose—engaging, easy to read, inoffensive and possibly even reassuring to a prospective analysand—an unsophisticated one.