This authoritative new standard presents Freud as no other work ever has. Combining a comprehensive account of Freudian theory with a synthesis of contemporary psychoanalysis, this volume includes the contributions of Margaret Mahler and Erik Erikson, as well as those of Kohut, Kernberg, Hartmann, Fairbairn, and Winnicott.Reknowned psychiatrist W. W. Meissner details the development of analytic theory, which has undergone a continual remodeling during the hundred years since the birth of psychoanalysis. Dr. Meissner traces this evolution from the earliest stages of Freud's psychoanalytic thinking to such recent developments as object relations theory and self-psychology. A chapter on psychoanalytic therapy rounds out this unique and essential volume.This is the only contemporary work on Freud and the field he fathered by a psychoanalytic psychiatrist, and as such will appeal to everyone interested in Freud and psychology -- practitioners, therapists, psychiatrists, graduate students, medical professors and students, undergraduate professors and students, as well as the general public.