ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to help the patient of psychotherapeutic intervention to stay with the therapy beyond both the initial satisfactions and the initial frustrations that the process entails. It intends to help unravel is how and why the route provided by psychoanalytic psychotherapy might be a better path to psychological health than other seemingly simpler and more straightforward therapeutic paths, at least in the long run, and at least for some of us. The book also aims to contribute to the project of understanding who and what we human beings are as creatures of consciousness and mind. Freud first developed his psychodynamic model of mind, many competing and conflicting theories and practices have entered the field of psychological therapy. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is the kind of therapy that most closely follows Freud's own dynamic model of mind, both in theory and in practice.
