Therapy, Dr Horney's views

"But we cannot cure the wrong course which the development of a person has taken. We can only assist him in gradually outgrowing his difficulties so that his development may assume a more constructive course. "

p. 333.

"...he must overcome all those needs, drives, or attitudes which obstruct his growth; only when he begins to relinquish his illusions about himself and his illusory goals has he the chance to find his real potentialities and develop them."

p. 334.

"But as long as the patient feels that they are the only ones he has he must cling to them."

p. 334

"In all patients the avoidance of conflicts has a double structure: they do not let conflicting trends come to the surface and they do not let any insight into them sink in."

p. 335

"Both muddled thinking and the cynical attitudes in these cases so befog the issue of conflicts that they are indeed unable tosee them."

p. 335.

"Theoretical Considerations of self-knowledge"

"Together with many others who had discarded Freud's theory of instincts, I first saw the core of neurosis in human relations.these were brought about by cultural conditions; specifically through environmental factors which obstructed the child's unhampered psychic growth. Instead of developing a basic confidence in self and others the child developed basic anxiety,...a feeling of being isolated and helpless toward a world potentially hostile."

p. 366.

"spontaneous moves toward, against, and away from others became compulsive."

p. 366.

The Neurotic then either seeks to dominate (impulsively moves against), or seeks to self efface (compulsively self deprecating to even morbid dependence upon others in moves toward), or seeks in the freedom of detatchment and feigned indifference or aloofness (compulsively moves away from) a means of coping with the inner conflicts, anxiety, tensions and self loathing that accompanies their situation of self alienation.

p. 366-68.

Intense self hatred and intense neurotic pride are "two aspects of one process..."

p. 368

The main thesis of this book:

"the godlike being is bound to hate his actual being.

Neurosis now became a disturbance in one's relationship to self and to others."

p. 368

"Freud's philosophy, in this deep sense is a pessimistic one. Ours, with all its cognizance of the tragic element in neurosis, is an optimistic one."

p. 378

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