Das Ich und die Abwehrmechanismen

The seventeenth edition of this volume is one of the indispensable textbooks of psychoanalysis. Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud's daughter, argues with her book that psychoanalysis is exclusively concerned with the unconscious. In reality, the object of analysis has always been the ego and its disturbances; the exploration of the unconscious serves only for its restoration. In detail, defensive processes of the ego are analysed, for example denial in the imagination, ego-restriction, identification with the attacker... "From the very beginning, the object of analytical therapy was the ego and its disorders, the exploration of the ego and its mode of operation has always been only a means to an end" (Anna Freud).