Introduction

These chapters chart the personal growth of one psychoanalyst, from learning the techniques of qualitative psychoanalytic research and using them to understand a particular patient, to using those techniques to answer many questions about psychoanalysis itself. Those questions include: what helps patients get better and why does free association prove to be so effective in helping patients to literally rewire their brains? The concept of cure in psychoanalysis is explored, and the argument is made that psychoanalysis can be a useful exercise even after a patient has resolved psychopathology. The repetition compulsion and its tenacity is considered, along with techniques and timing that facilitate its resolution. Wider applications of psychoanalysis in education, business, and literature are described, as well as the usefulness of humor in the psychoanalytic process. Finally, the challenges of aging and human transience are looked at from a psychoanalytic perspective.