This volume, now in its seventeenth edition, is one of the essential textbooks of psychoanalysis. Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud, counters the opinion that psychoanalysis deals exclusively with the unconscious. In reality, the object of analysis has always been the ego and its disturbances; the exploration of the unconscious serves only to restore it. Specifically, the defense mechanisms of the ego are analyzed, such as denial in fantasy, ego limitation, and identification with the aggressor. "From the very beginning, the object of analytical therapy has been the ego and its disturbances; the exploration of the id and its functioning has always been merely a means to an end" (Anna Freud).