Dr. Meissner details the development of psychoanalytic theory, tracing its evolution from the earliest stages of Freud’s thinking to recent developments such as object relations theory and self-psychology. A chapter on psychoanalytic therapy completes this unique and essential volume. was originally published as part of a reference work addressed to psychiatrists. The University of Notre Dame Press edition of this classic study makes it available for the first time to a wider audience. The only contemporary work on Freud and the field he founded written by a psychoanalytic psychiatrist, this will appeal to everyone interested in Freud or intellectual history—therapists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, medical students, collegiate, graduate, and divinity students and professors, and the general public.