The Only Cure
Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing
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The Only Cure
Narrated by:
Mark Solms
Buy Now for $29.74
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Narrated by:
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Mark Solms
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By:
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Mark Solms
'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©2026 Mark Solms (P)2026 Orion Publishing Group Limited
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Critic Reviews
A wide-ranging and engrossing defence of Freud as a scientist and a healer . . . It would be difficult to improve on Solms's credentials for the task he sets himself . . . He is also a wonderfully witty and lucid writer . . . Deeply moving case histories of patients [. . .] show that at the heart of psychoanalytic practice is an empathy that enables patients to detoxify their experiences . . . Solms has nudged the attitude of this sceptic (Raymond Tallis)
This is an extraordinary book on so many different levels. It's a dramatic history of psychoanalysis, a reassessment of Freud, a fascinating and moving autobiography, and a compelling argument for rethinking the place of feelings and subjectivity within the framework of science. And hence it's also about caring, and nurture - and love. How minds change is the question at the centre of this book. It's changing mine (BRIAN ENO, producer, composer and artist)
Refreshing . . . Solms makes his case interestingly, sincerely and with passion
The book succeeds powerfully in its central aim: to undermine the claim that psychoanalysis is unscientific. By demonstrating how closely contemporary neuroscience aligns with Freud's core insights, Solms reframes psychoanalysis not as an outdated rival to biology, but as its necessary partner . . . Psychoanalysis is lucky to have Mark Solms in its corner
Solms is making a brilliant, determined, scrupulous and tactful endeavor to approach, in a new way, the oldest question of them all (OLIVER SACKS)
Solms made a really compelling case that the origin of consciousness is with feelings, not thoughts. Feelings are the language in which the body talks to the brain . . . I'm convinced (MICHAEL POLLAN)
Sigmund Freud invented psychotherapy, a treatment that now has global reach, but why and how does the talking cure work? Mark Solms mingles the poignant, fascinating, sometimes harrowing stories of his psychoanalytic patients, as well as stories from his own life, with scientific research, past and present, which together illuminate Freud's original insights into the workings of brain and mind. Lucid, confiding, incisive, erudite, and often funny, Solms is the perfect guide for any reader curious about what it means to heal the ailing self (SIRI HUSTVEDT, author of What I Loved)
Anyone paying close attention to the field of psychoanalysis will be aware of the breathtakingly revolutionary contributions of Mark Solms. Moving deftly between personal narrative and psychoanalytic and neuroscientific knowledge, The Only Cure makes these groundbreaking discoveries accessible while also placing them in a historical context. An impressive feat (NUAR ALSADIR, author of Animal Joy and featured psychoanalyst on Showtime’s Couples Therapy)
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