Sigmund Freud s controversial ideas have penetrated Western culture more deeply than those of any other psychologist. The Freudian slip , the Oedipus complex , childhood sexuality , libido , narcissism penis envy , the castration complex , the id , the ego and the superego , denial , repression , identification , projection , acting out , the pleasure principle , the reality principle , defence-mechanism - are all taken for granted in our everyday vocabulary. Psychoanalysis was never just a method of treatment, rather a vision of the human condition which has continued to fascinate and provoke long after the death of its originator. Its central hypothesis, that we live in conflict with ourselves and seek to resolve matters by turning away from reality, did not emerge from experimental science but from self-examination and the unique opportunities for observation presented by the psychoanalytic technique - in particular, from the confessions produced by free-association in Freud s consulting room. Written during the turmoil of the First World War, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis was distilled from a series of lectures given at Vienna University, but had to wait for the war to end before being made available to the English speaking world.