This collection of papers, spanning the last 15 years, presents a spirited defence of Freud's clinical method, considering the -crisis of psychoanalysis- in the wider context of a crisis of reflective thought in society as a whole. Expressing the wish to -clarify and polish the glass through which we see the psychoanalytic experience-, Jorge Ahumada seeks to redefine the functions of psychoanalysis for the era of mass media, in which the classic Freudian neuroses have mostly been replaced by what he terms -pathologies of peremptory gratification-.