THE ONLY CURE, Freud and the neuroscience of mental healing

320pp., paperback, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2026

ISBN: 9781399623384

Pioneering neuroscientist Mark Solms demonstrates that psychoanalytic therapy, once dismissed as unscientific, is proving to be among our most effective medical treatments of any kind, outperforming psychiatric drugs. Since neuroscience now confirms much of what Sigmund Freud theorised over a century ago, he argues that it restores the hope of a real science of healing, rooted in the radical idea that our suffering stems, not from chemical imbalances, but from buried memories and unconscious conflicts we haven't yet faced.

"A scholarly masterpiece, written by the world's greatest living authority ... There is so much to be learned in these pages." Karl J. Friston, neuroscientist and theoretician at University College London

"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 The Blazing World

South African psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist Professor Mark Solms is known for his discovery of the brain mechanisms of dreaming. He is Director of Neuropsychology at the Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town, an honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the St Bartholomew's and Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, and an honorary fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists. He is the author of the popular-science book,The Hidden Spring: A journey to the source of consciousness (2021), and the authorised editor and translator of The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols, 2024).