Our task in Psychoanalytic Therapy

Our task in psychoanalytic therapy is not to replace sickness with health. We are not aiming at a "cure" for illness. Our task rather is to exchange untenable illnesses, illnesses that we can no longer use, for tenable illnesses, that is, illnesses that allow us to move forward. We cannot escape neurosis & illusion, these are intrinsic to the human condition. But we can achieve neuroses & illusions that allow us to live fruitfully rather than destructively. But we work always in the knowledge that these new neuroses will have to be reviewed again at some point in the future, when their usefulness too has run its course.