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On more than one occasion, though not without a certain bitterness, Freud had good reasons for writing to Binswanger that there is “nothing in man’s nature that predisposes him to take an interest in psychoanalysis.” A further, psychologically damaging step is the revealing of the defense mechanisms that the ego creates to evade the effects of psychoanalysis during treatment. Sustaining the love of truth (the recognition of this reality, whose psychopathology unfailingly shows us that human beings are ever-inclined to turn away from it) requires us to overcome the passion of ignoring and inhabiting hatred. The cost of psychoanalytical work is considerable as it requires us to overcome misconceptions that until now have seemed vital (and which were so, from a certain point of view), and recognize the uncontrollable violence of instinctual impulses, the resource of hate we have in us, and that repression hides from us. Psychoanalytical practice shows (every time like the first time) the extent of the conflict that everyone faces between staying true to oneself and adapting to the demands imposed by psychoanalytical work. It is at such times that we take stock of the difficulties involved, for the patient but also for the psychoanalyst, in going beyond the pleasure principle. The latter’s power stands in the way of the psychoanalytical work becoming a work on culture, and threatens to make the cure become a subtle way to keep avoiding reality.