A sea change has been taking place in the science of mental healthcare. Dismissed for years as a soft, unquantifiable substitute for real medicine, evidence is now piling up that therapy - psychoanalytic therapy in particular - is one of the most powerful treatments that we possess for illness of any kind. Vastly more effective than almost all psychiatric drugs, it is as reliable against a plethora of mental complaints as the HPV vaccine is at preventing cervical cancer. But why does it work so well? The answer may lie in another surprising development. The model of the human mind that is now emerging from the frontiers of neuroscience turns out (to the dismay of many scientists) to confirm much of what Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, conjectured more than a century ago. Could it be that therapy works because Freudian theory, with its underworlds of murky desire and unconscious fantasy, is largely true ? Long relegated to the status of pseudoscience, psychoanalysis could now be poised to resume its position as our master theory of the mind. Join the pioneering neuropsychologist Mark Solms on a revelatory inquiry into the essence of mental sickness and health. In this dazzling synthesis, Freud''s original vision, lightly revised in light of some astonishing new brain research, turns out to be just the thing to plug the void at the centre of contemporary psychiatry. What news could be more welcome, amid a mental health crisis, than that the cure has been in our possession all along - so long as we can commit to the treatment we really need.

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Mark Solms discovered the brain mechanisms of dreaming, transforming our understanding of the sleeping mind. A world-leading pioneer in neuropsychoanalysis, he has spent decades bridging Freudian theory and cutting-edge neuroscience. His acclaimed book The Hidden Spring (2021) established him as one of the most important voices in contemporary psychology. As translator of The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (2024) and science director of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he is the foremost authority on psychoanalytic science today.

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'Wide-ranging and engrossing . . . Wonderfully witty and lucid' Raymond Tallis, GUARDIAN
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'Refreshing . . . Solms makes his case interestingly, sincerely and with passion' SUNDAY TIMES**

'Extraordinary on so many levels' BRIAN ENO

'Brilliant, determined, scrupulous, tactful' OLIVER SACKS

Once dismissed as unscientific, psychoanalytic therapy is proving to be among our most effective medical treatments of any kind - outperforming psychiatric drugs and rivalling vaccines in its power to prevent and heal. Why does it work so well?

Perhaps because one of the most controversial figures in psychology was right all along. Neuroscience now confirms much of what Sigmund Freud conjectured over a century ago: our deepest struggles stem not from chemical imbalances, but from buried memories and unconscious conflicts that no pill can touch.

Using enthralling case studies and cutting-edge brain science, pioneering neuroscientist Mark Solms makes the case that psychoanalysis should resume its position as our master theory of the mind. Yet modern research also reveals where Freud got important things wrong. Could correcting these errors make therapy even more effective?

As psychiatric diagnoses soar and standard treatments continue to fail many patients, The Only Cure offers a revolutionary hope: a real science of healing, rooted in the radical idea that our suffering arises from truths we haven't yet faced.

'Breathtakingly revolutionary' NUAR ALSADIR

'A deeply thought-provoking book, written with the kind of care he advocates for his patients' SOPHIE ELMHIRST

'Has the rare quality of being both an act of scholarship and an act of love' KEIRAN GODDARD

'Lucid, confiding, incisive, erudite, and often funny, Solms is the perfect guide' SIRI HUSTVEDT