This is a world ripe for psychotherapeutic innovations, such as the "neuroparticipant therapy" in which the protagonist, Charles Render, specializes. In neuroparticipation, the patient is hooked into a gigantic simulation controlled directly by the analyst's mind; the analyst then works with the patient to construct dreams—nightmares, wish-fulfillment, etc.--that afford insight into the underlying neuroses of the patient, and in some cases the possibility of direct intervention. (For example, a man submerging himself in a fantasy world sees it utterly destroyed at Render's hands, and is thus "cured" of his obsession with it.)