Self-analysis

Karen Horney

This book shows how and to what extent the individual can psychoanalyze himself. More and more, people are turning to psychoanalysis not because they suffer from depressions, phobias, or comparable disorders but because they feel that factors within themselves are holding them back or injuring their relationships with others. Professional analytical help, however, cannot possibly reach everyone whom it is capable of benefiting, and it is for this reason that the question of self-analysis becomes important. To offer the discoveries of psychoanalysis to the individual, for use in dealing with his own problems, Dr. Horney has written this book. The endeavor to "know oneself" can be greatly assisted by the discoveries of psychoanalysis. Constructive self-analysis gives the individual a chance for general character development and for self-realization--not only by utilizing special gifts that may have been inhibited before, but also, even more important, by developing his potentialities as a strong and integrated human being, free from crippling compulsions. Dr. Horney discusses the driving forces in the neuroses, the different stages of psychoanalytical understanding, the patient's and the analyst's share in the psychoanalytic process, occasional and systematic self-analysis, and the limitations and difficulties involved in undertaking self-analysis. Dr. Horney's two previous books on the neuroses offered new viewpoints, interpreted with a directness and freshness that won them a large public. In Self-Analysis she not only helps the individual solve his personal problems but in doing so helps clarify some of the frictions and misunderstandings, the hates, fears, hurts and vulnerabilities which cause the present ills of the world.--From dust jacket.