Case histories do demonstrate more what’s wrong with psychology than with its cases. The clinical stories show how usual psychology—and we are each affected by its style of thought—draws its conclusions by working backward from the ordinary to the extraordinary, taking the “extra” right out of it.

Freud’s centralizing of the Oedipus complex structures the human psyche around a question of personal guilt: “He . . . placed the questions ‘What have I done?,’ ‘Am I a criminal?,’ . . . at the heart of self-inquiry.”

"Why so self-referential?" they often ask. "Why refer everything back to the unreal relationship with the therapist?

Often today, those who suffer from mental-health issues are encouraged by well-meaning awareness groups to claim proud ownership of their troubled inner lives. So rather than feel stigmatised, a sufferer might seek dignity by identifying with her depression. That proud identification might be helpful in the short term (and certainly to disparage pe