The hypnosis of perception
Freud attempts in this book to offer insights to his reader concerning the improvement of their psychology and their experience of reality. This exposes a dramatic irony which is quite often taken for granted. The experience of encountering reality is one that has a hypnotic effect on a person such that some people go years without ever addressing the mystery of that fact. In Freud's world, analyzing one's experience of reality is one-and-the-same with improving one's psychology.
The depth of the psyche
Freud often illustrates an irony about the human experience of reality. To borrow a term from Freud's critic and friend, Carl Jung, "The roots of the soul go all the way down." By analyzing the human experience of the unconscious, Freud hopes to illustrate that a person's psychology extends far past what they already might believe about their self or their nature. To plumb the depths of the unconscious might be horrifying or agonizing at times, or filled with religious ecstasy and awakening. Dreams are offered as proof of this dramatically ironic experience of reality; if one cannot explain the nature of the dream state, they cannot rule out the existence of the unconscious.
Sexual repression
Although it is not the kind of subject matter that typically gets discussed in polite company, sexual repression is a major factor in Freud's Analysis for Beginners. The concept is more complex than it seems on the surface. In fact, it is downright ironic, because the people who might say "I have no sexual urges which I repress," are very likely to have repressed their sexual desire to arrive at such an opinion. He explains that sexual urges are often much deeper than just bodily urges. The psychology's relationship to pleasure and happiness is in some way tied to the experience of sexual ecstasy.
The meaning of dreams
Freud alleges that dreams are profoundly meaningful. This is ironic in one sense at least, because dreams often have a quality that yells out to the dreamer "Interpret me!" but without the correct strategies for interpretation, it becomes a private dilemma. By bringing one's dreams to light, especially recurrent or particularly intense dreams, and then by employing the strategies that Freud outlines in the book, a reader could begin to understand the intricacies of their own motivation and psychology.
Self-care
Freud's Analysis for Beginners is a sophisticated form of self-care. The gift of the book to the reader is that one does not need highly technical knowledge about the brain or about psychology to understand the book. It is a book designed to offer resources to a layman, akin perhaps to Jung's A Man and His Symbols. There is an irony in self-care because it is a hidden option in one's waking experience of life. Although sometimes a mind craves therapy, it is sometimes difficult to realize that it is possible to give therapy to one's self through honesty and self-reflection.
