When humans became conscious of their existence as objects in the world, their nature proved to be an enigma. It kept thinkers and philosophers--for centuries--busy dealing with its mystery. In all the impressive efforts made by great thinkers, there was always a missing element that prevented a full closure on its makeup. Late in the nineteenth century when Freud was experimenting with psychotherapy, he discovered and established the existence of unconscious processes that permeate the subject's psychological life. They coexisted in every conscious and cognitive human activity and made it difficult to understand the nature of the subject as a simple entity. Freud and some talented coworkers made strides in discovering the nature of the subject. However, they did not realize that they were building a theory of the human subject. Because they were working in the field of psychotherapy and mental health, psychoanalysis was thus branded a technique of psychotherapy. This book is of the view that psychoanalysis is a theory of the human subject, which could have a psychotherapeutic facet. Few psychical features of the human subject were chosen in this book to be explained in their psychoanalytic capacity. Psychoanalysis was also discussed as an act of treating the subject, not some isolated and separate attributes of it.
Ahmed Fayek was an associate professor of Clinical Psychology in Cairo, Egypt, before immigrating to Canada. His interest in psychoanalysis was a major factor in his immigration to Canada in 1971. He had an accredited training in the Montreal Institute of Psychoanalysis and became a training analyst in 1980. He was Director of Psychology at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, before retiring in 1989. In the last fifteen years before fully retiring, he did some consulting and supervising work in the Middle East and dedicated the rest of the time to writing and publishing.