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In this book twenty people, outstanding in their fields, described their experiences in psychotherapy (not psychoanalysis in most cases) and
indicated some of the reasons which led to it. Some of the stories were written with the help of interviewers, while other contributors were quoted only with brief comments. The analysands included writers, artists, performers (mainly actors), public relations experts, analysts, a ball player, and a boxer.
Lucy Freeman, the editor, also wrote an account of her own analysis. In the introduction to the book she noted the dramatic change of attitude toward the admission of emotional disturbances and of their treatment since the time of Freud and Breuer.
The most profound and poetic contribution is Hermann Hesse's essay, “Kuenstler und Analyse” (”Artist and Analysis”), written in 1918 and here called “The Alien Voice Within.” The translator, Miriam M. Reik, wrote that Hesse “was apparently suffering from symptoms of a compulsion neurosis, when … a crisis brought him into treatment in 1916.” She also mentioned that his most successful work, including Steppenwolf and Magister Ludi, which won him a Nobel prize, were written after his analysis. Hesse stated that besides the gains in understanding human problems which the reading of psychoanalytic literature provided for him as for all artists, his analysis freed his creativity: It helped him overcome his mistrust of his own calling. It provided a profound confirmation of the value of fantasy or fiction. It enabled him to experience “a more passionate back and forth between the conscious and the unconscious … and it demands a sincerity towards oneself to which we are not accustomed.” In the end “the significance of life and of personality is the more pure.” This statement and Hesse's subsequent achievements should help to allay the fear of some creative people that treatment will interfere with their productivity.
The majority of the contributors feel that their professional performance