The goal that guided me in writing this book was to give a more complete and accurate description of a person living among us and suffering from neurosis, to describe the conflicts that really drive him, the experiences and the many difficulties that he experiences in relationships with people, as well as in regarding yourself. I am not considering here any particular type or types of neuroses, but am concentrating on describing the structure of character which is now repeated in one form or another in almost all people suffering from neurosis. Special attention is devoted not to the past, but to the neurotic’s current conflicts and attempts to resolve them, as well as his pressing anxieties and defenses created against them. This emphasis on the actual situation does not mean that I abandon the idea that, in essence, neuroses develop from experiences in early childhood. But I disagree with many psychoanalysts in that I do not think it justified to concentrate on childhood in a kind of one-sided fascination with it and to consider subsequent reactions as repetitions of earlier experiences. I want to show that the connection between childhood experiences and later conflicts is much more complex than many psychoanalysts who talk about a simple cause-and-effect relationship assume. Although experiences in childhood create the determining conditions for the emergence of neuroses, they are nevertheless not the only cause of subsequent difficulties. When we focus our attention on the current problems of a neurotic, we realize that neuroses are generated not only by individual experiences of a person, but also by the specific cultural conditions in which we live. In fact, cultural conditions not only give weight and color to individual experiences, but ultimately determine their particular form. For example, it is the destiny of an individual to have a despotic or "child-sacrificing" mother, but the type of mother that is is determined by given cultural conditions, and it is also only because of these existing conditions that such an experience will have an impact on later life. When we realize the enormous importance of the influence of cultural conditions on neuroses, those biological and physiological conditions considered by Freud as underlying them recede into the background. The influence of these latter factors should only be considered on the basis of firmly established data. This orientation of mine has led to some new interpretations of a significant number of fundamental problems in the neuroses. Although these interpretations relate to such fundamentally different issues as the problem of masochism, the internal causes of the neurotic need for love and affection, the meaning of neurotic feelings of guilt, they all have a common basis - the recognition that anxiety plays a decisive role in the generation of neurotic character traits ... This book presents the impressions that I received during a long psychoanalytic study of neuroses. To present the material on which my interpretations are based, I would have to describe in detail the histories of numerous cases, which would be too cumbersome for a book intended to give a general idea of the problems connected with neuroses... This book is written accessible language, and for the sake of clarity I have refrained from discussing very many of the related issues. As far as possible, technical terms were not used, since there is always a danger that such terms will replace clear understanding. As a result, it may seem to many readers, especially non-professionals, that the problems of the neurotic personality are not at all difficult to understand. But such a conclusion would be erroneous and even dangerous. We cannot escape the fact that all psychological problems are inevitably subtle and complex. If anyone does not want to accept this fact, he had better not read this book, otherwise he will be confused and disappointed in the search for ready-made formulas. The book you are holding in your hands is addressed to non-professionals, as well as to those persons who, due to the nature of their work, have to deal with neurotic individuals and who are familiar with the problems associated with them. This latter category includes not only psychiatrists, but also social workers and educators, as well as those groups of anthropologists and sociologists who have realized the importance of psychological factors in the study of different cultures. Finally, I hope that this book will be useful for the neurotic himself. Even if he does not reject in principle all psychological thinking as an intrusion and the imposition of alien opinions, he often, as a result of his own suffering, has a more subtle and accurate understanding of psychological complexities than his healthy brothers. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Miss Elizabeth Todd, who edited this book. Authors to whom I am indebted are mentioned in the text. I express special gratitude to Freud for providing us with a theoretical basis and “tools” to work with, and to my patients, because all my understanding grew out of our work together.
Chapter 1. Cultural and psychological aspects of understanding neuroses.
Quite often in our time we use the term “neurotic”, without, however, having any clear idea of what it means. It is often understood as nothing more than a slightly arrogant way of expressing disapproval: someone who previously would have been content with the words “lazy”, “vulnerable”, “overly demanding” or “suspicious” is now likely to say “neurotic”. However, we do mean something specific when we use this term, and, without fully realizing it, we rely on special criteria in choosing it. First, neurotics differ from normal individuals in their reactions. For example, we will tend to consider as neurotic a girl who prefers to remain indifferent, refuses to receive higher pay and does not strive to achieve a higher position, or an artist who earns only $30 a week and prefers to be content with little instead of working hard and striving for it. more. The reason we would call such people neurotic is that most of us are only familiar with the pattern of behavior that involves wanting to get ahead in life, to get ahead of others, to make money. Furthermore the minimum necessary for normal existence. These examples show that the criterion we use in determining a person as neurotic is whether his lifestyle coincides with any of the accepted patterns of behavior in our time. If a girl, devoid of competitive motives or at least Without any overt competitive tendencies, living in Pueblo culture, she would have been considered completely normal. Or if the artist lived in a village in the south of Italy or Mexico, he would also be considered normal, because in that environment it is unthinkable that anyone would want to earn money more money or exert any more effort than is necessary to satisfy one's immediate needs. Let us turn to the past of Greece. There, the desire to work more than was necessary to satisfy human needs was considered indecent. Thus, the very term "neurotic", although medical in origin, cannot now be used without taking into account the cultural aspects of its meaning. You can diagnose a broken leg without knowing the patient's cultural background, but calling a Native American boy a psychopath because he says he has visions that he believes in is a huge risk. In the peculiar culture of these Indians, the ability to experience visions and hallucinations is considered a special gift, a blessing of the spirits, and the ability to evoke them is deliberately stimulated as conferring special prestige on the person who has them. In our country, a person talking to his deceased grandfather for an hour would be considered a recognized neurotic or psychopath, while such communication with ancestors is considered a recognized pattern among some Indian tribes. We would indeed consider a person to be neurotic if he felt mortally offended when the name of his deceased relative was mentioned, but he would be considered completely normal in Jicarilla Apache culture. A man who is mortally frightened by the approach of a menstruating woman will be considered neurotic by us, while for many primitive tribes fear of menstruation is a common attitude. The concept of what is normal changes not only across cultures, but also, over time, within the same culture. For example, in our time, if a mature and independent woman considered herself “superior”, “unworthy of love from a decent person” just because she had previously entered into sexual relations, others would suspect her of neurosis. About forty years ago, such feelings of guilt would have been considered normal. The idea of the norm also varies among different classes of society. For example, representatives of the feudal class consider it normal for a person of their circle to indulge in rest all the time, being active only during hunting or military operations, while a representative of the petty bourgeois class who displays the same attitude will definitely be considered abnormal. Such variation also occurs due to gender differences as they exist in society, as is the case in Western culture, where men and women are believed to have different temperaments. It is “normal” for a forty-year-old woman to be overly concerned and afraid of approaching old age, while a man in a similar situation would be considered neurotic. Every educated person understands that there are variations within the boundaries of what is considered normal. We know that the Chinese eat food different from ours; that the Eskimos have different ideas about cleanliness than we do; that a healer does not have the same methods of treating a patient as a modern doctor. However, the differences affect not only customs, but also motives and feelings, often understood to a lesser extent, although this has been reported explicitly or implicitly by anthropologists. One of the virtues of modern anthropology, as Sapir said, is that it constantly rediscovers ideas about the normal, standard sample. For essential reasons, every culture holds to the belief that its inherent feelings and drives are the only normal expression of “human nature,” and psychology is no exception to this rule. Freud, for example, concludes from his observations that women are more jealous than men, and then tries to explain this apparently general phenomenon on biological grounds. Freud also seems to have accepted that all people experience feelings of guilt associated with murder (“Totem and Taboo”). What is undeniable, however, is that there are huge differences in attitudes towards murder. As Peter Freuchen has shown, Eskimos do not believe that a murderer deserves to be punished. In many primitive tribes there is a custom: in order to appease a mother who has lost her son, one of the killer’s relatives takes the place of the murdered person in the family. Using more deeply the discoveries of anthropologists, we have to admit that some of our ideas about human nature are rather naive, for example the idea that competition, childhood rivalry in the family, the kinship between affection and sexuality are phenomena inherent in human nature. We arrive at our ideas of normality through the endorsement of certain standards of behavior and feelings within certain groups, which impose these standards on their members. But standards vary depending on culture, era, class and gender... Part of moving along this path means following the path that ultimately led Freud to an understanding of neuroses that was previously unthinkable. Although in theory Freud traces the deep connections of our characteristics with biologically determined drives, he persistently emphasizes - in theory, and even more in practice - that we cannot understand neurosis without a detailed knowledge of the circumstances of the individual's life, especially the attachments in early childhood , having a formative influence... We have already seen that neurosis presupposes deviation from the norm. This criterion is very important, although not sufficient. People can deviate from the general pattern without suffering from neurosis. The artist mentioned above, who refused to spend time earning more than the amount of money needed to live, may have had a neurosis, or perhaps he had enough wisdom not to be like others caught up in the daily race, competition and struggle . On the other hand, many people who, according to superficial observation, have adapted to existing patterns of life, may have severe neurosis. It is in such cases that psychological or medical analysis is necessary. It is quite curious that from this point of view it is extremely difficult to say what constitutes a neurosis. In any case, as long as we study only the picture of manifestations, it is difficult to find signs common to all neuroses. We definitely cannot use symptoms such as phobias, depression, functional somatic disorders as criteria because they may not be present. There are always some types of internal inhibitions (the reasons for which I will discuss later), but they can be so subtle or so well hidden that they will elude superficial observation. The same difficulties arise if we judge other people's disorders, including disorders in sexual relationships, based on their expressions alone. They always occur, but they can be very difficult to recognize. However, they have two characteristics that can be found in all neuroses without a deep study of the personality structure: a certain rigidity of reaction and a gap between a person’s capabilities and their implementation. Both of these signs require additional explanation. By response rigidity I mean the lack of that flexibility that allows us to respond in different ways to different situations. For example, a normal person becomes suspicious when he feels or sees reasons for it; a neurotic can be suspicious all the time, regardless of the situation, whether he is aware of his condition or not. A normal person is able to discern the difference between sincere and insincere compliments; the neurotic does not differentiate between them or under any circumstances believes them. A normal person will feel angry if he senses unjustified deception; Any hint (even if he realizes that this is being done in his interests) is enough for a neurotic to get angry. A normal person may feel indecisive at times when faced with an important and difficult issue; a neurotic person is constantly indecisive. Rigidity, however, indicates the presence of neurosis when it deviates from cultural patterns... Likewise, the discrepancy between the potential capabilities of a given person and his actual achievements in life is caused only by external factors. But it may indicate the presence of neurosis: if, despite his talents and favorable external opportunities for their development, a person remains infertile; or, having everything to feel happy, he cannot enjoy it; or, having a brilliant appearance, a woman does not consider herself attractive. In other words, the neurotic stands in his own way. Leaving aside the picture of external manifestations and turning to the consideration of the driving forces involved in the generation of neuroses, one can discover one essentially important factor common to all neuroses. This is anxiety and the defenses that are built against it. No matter how intricate the structure of neurosis may be, anxiety is the motor that launches the neurotic process and maintains its course. The meaning of this statement will become clear in the following chapters, and therefore I will refrain from giving examples here. But even if we accept this thesis only preliminary, as a basic principle, it requires clarification. As presented, this statement is obviously too general. Anxiety and fear (let us use these terms interchangeably for a moment) are ubiquitous, and so are defenses against them. These reactions are not limited to humans. An animal, frightened by one or another danger, either launches a counterattack or runs away. We have exactly the same situation of fear and protection. For example, we are afraid of being killed by lightning and install a lightning rod on the roof, or we are afraid of the consequences of possible accidents and take out an insurance policy. Factors of fear and protection are also present. They are presented in various specific forms in each culture and can take on an institutionalized form, as in the case of wearing amulets as protection against fear of the evil eye , in the case of observing detailed rituals that protect against fear of the deceased, a taboo regarding the danger of meeting a woman during the menstrual cycle as protection against fear of the evil emanating from her. What then are the signs of neurotic fears and defenses that make them specifically neurotic?.. First. The living conditions in every culture give rise to certain fears... The neurotic, however, not only shares the fears common to all people in a given culture, but due to the conditions of his individual life, which are intertwined with the general conditions, he also experiences fears that are qualitatively or quantitatively different from the fears a certain cultural pattern. Second. To reflect the fears that exist in a given culture, in general there are certain methods of protection (such as taboos, rituals, customs). As a rule, these defenses represent a more expedient way of dealing with fears than the neurotic’s defenses constructed in a different way. Thus, a normal person, although characterized by the fears and defenses of his culture, will generally be quite capable of realizing his potentialities and enjoying the pleasures that life has to offer him. A normal person can make the best use of the opportunities available in his culture. If we put it in terms of denial, then he suffers no more than is inevitable in his culture. The neurotic, on the other hand, always suffers more than the normal person. He invariably has to pay an excessive price for his defenses, namely, the weakening of his vital energy and capacity, or, especially, the weakening of his capacity for achievement and pleasure as a result of the difference I have indicated. In reality, a neurotic is a constantly suffering person. The only reason why I did not mention this fact when I discussed the signs of all neuroses that can be gleaned from superficial observation is that this fact is not always observable from the outside. Even the neurotic himself may not realize that he is suffering. There is another essential sign of neurosis, and it lies in the presence of a conflict of contradictory tendencies, the existence of which, or at least their exact content, the neurotic himself is not aware of and in relation to which he involuntarily tries to find certain compromise solutions. It is this latter feature that Freud emphasized in various forms as an essential component of neuroses. The difference between neurotic conflicts and the conflicts commonly encountered in a given culture lies not in their content and not in the fact that they are basically unconscious - in both of these cases they may be identical to the commonly occurring conflicts in a given culture - but in the fact that they neuroticism conflicts are more pronounced and more acute. A neurotic strives for and comes to compromise solutions - not by chance called neurotic - and these solutions are less satisfactory than the decisions of a normal person, and are achieved at a high cost for the personality as a whole. Having expressed all these considerations, we are not yet able to give a well-founded definition of neurosis here, but we can approach its description: neurosis is a mental disorder caused by fears and defenses against them, as well as attempts to find compromise solutions to the conflict of multidirectional tendencies. For practical reasons, it is advisable to call this disorder a neurosis only when it deviates from the generally accepted pattern in a given culture.
Most of us would like to be loved. We gratefully accept the feeling of love and feel sad when it does not happen. For a child, the feeling of being wanted, as we said earlier, is vital for harmonious development. But what are the characteristics of such a need for love, which can be considered neurotic? In my opinion, the arbitrary labeling of this need as infantile is not only unfair to children, but it overlooks the fact that the essential factors constituting the neurotic need for love have nothing to do with infantilism. Infantile and neurotic needs have only one common element - their helplessness, although it also has different bases in these two cases. In addition, neurotic needs are formed under completely different prerequisites. Let us repeat, this is anxiety, the feeling that no one loves you, the inability to believe in someone's love and affection, and a hostile attitude towards all people. The first distinguishing feature that strikes us in the neurotic need for love is its obsessive nature. Whenever a person is driven by severe anxiety, the inevitable result is a loss of spontaneity and flexibility. Simply put, this means that for a neurotic, receiving love is not a luxury, not primarily a source of additional strength or pleasure, but a vital necessity. The difference here is the same as the difference between “I want to be loved and enjoy being loved” and “I need to be loved no matter what the cost.” Figuratively speaking, the difference is between someone who is able to be a picky eater and enjoys pleasure through a good appetite, and a starving person who must accept any food indiscriminately because he cannot indulge his whims. This attitude invariably leads to an overestimation of the actual meaning of being loved. In fact, it is not so important that all people love us. In fact, it may be important to be liked by certain people - those we care about, those with whom we have to live and work, or those with whom we want to make a good impression. Apart from these people, it hardly matters whether others love us or not. However, neurotics feel and behave as if their very existence and safety depended on the love of other people for them. Their desires can be extended to everyone indiscriminately, from the hairdresser or stranger the person they meet at a party, to colleagues and friends, or to all women, or to all men. So a greeting, a phone call or an invitation, depending on the more or less friendly tone, can change their mood and outlook on life. I must mention one problem in this connection: the inability to be alone - ranging from mild restlessness and anxiety to a pronounced horror of loneliness. I'm not talking about those hopelessly dull and boring people who cannot stand being alone with themselves, but about people with a lively mind, capable of invention, who, unlike those mentioned above, are able to find a lot of exciting things to do when alone. For example, there are often people who can only work in the presence of others, but when alone they experience anxiety and even feel unhappy and unable to work. Other factors may contribute to their need for companionship, but the general picture is one of vague anxiety, a need for love, or, more accurately, a need for some human contact. These people experience a feeling of abandonment, and any human contact is a relief for them. Sometimes you can observe that the inability to be alone goes in parallel with an increase in anxiety. Some patients may be alone as long as they feel sheltered behind the walls of protection with which they have surrounded themselves. But as soon as their defense mechanisms are effectively exposed through analysis and some anxiety is aroused, they suddenly find themselves unable to tolerate loneliness any longer. This is one of the temporary deteriorations in the patient's condition that are inevitable during the analysis process. The neurotic need for love and affection can be focused on one person - husband, wife, doctor, friend. If this is the case, then the affection, interest, friendship and presence of the person in question assumes enormous significance. However, the neurotic has a paradoxical character. On the one hand, he tries to attract the interest of such a person, to get him, is afraid of losing his love and feels rejected if he is not around; and on the other hand, he does not experience happiness at all when he is with his “idol”. If he ever becomes aware of such a contradiction, he usually experiences bewilderment. But based on what I said earlier, it is obvious that the desire for the presence of such a person is not an expression of a sincere feeling of love, tenderness, but only a need to find peace and confidence, reinforced by the fact that this person is nearby. (Of course, sincere tenderness and the need for comforting love can go together, but they are not necessarily the same.) The scope of the passionate search for love and affection may be limited to certain groups of people, perhaps to one group with which there are common interests, such as political or religious group, or it may be limited to one gender. If the need for self-confidence and peace of mind is limited to the opposite sex, such a person's condition may, upon superficial examination, appear to be "normal" and will usually be defended by such a person as "normal". For example, there are women who feel unhappy and full of anxiety if there is no man next to them; they will have an affair, soon break it off, feel unhappy and anxious again, start another affair, and so on. The fact that this is not a genuine desire for connection with men is evident from the fact that these connections are conflictual and do not bring satisfaction. Usually these women stop at the first man they come across; for them, his very presence is important, and not a love affair. As a rule, they do not even receive physical satisfaction. In reality, of course, this picture is more complex. I highlight here only the role played by anxiety and the need for love. A similar phenomenon occurs in some men. They may have an obsessive desire to be loved by all women and will feel awkward and anxious in the company of men. If the need for love is focused on members of the same sex, it can serve as one of the determining factors in hidden or overt homosexuality. Such a need for love from people of the same sex may be due to the fact that the path to the other sex is complicated by too much anxiety, which may not manifest itself clearly, but hide behind a feeling of disgust or lack of interest in the opposite sex. Since the love of another person is a vital factor, it follows that the neurotic will pay any price for it, mostly without realizing it. The most common price for love is a position of submission and emotional dependence. Submissiveness may be expressed in the fact that the neurotic will not dare to disagree with the views and actions of another person or criticize him, showing only complete devotion, admiration and obedience. When these types of people do make critical or disparaging remarks, they feel anxious, even if their remarks are harmless. Submission can go so far that the neurotic will repress not only aggressive impulses, but also all tendencies towards self-affirmation, will allow himself to be mocked and make any sacrifice, no matter how harmful it may be. For example, his self-denial may manifest itself in the desire to get diabetes because the person whose love he craves is busy with research in this area. Thus, having this disease, he could perhaps gain the interest of this person. Related to this position of submission and inextricably intertwined with it is the emotional dependence that arises as a result of a person’s neurotic need to cling to someone who gives hope for protection. Such dependence can not only cause endless suffering, but can even be extremely harmful. For example, there are relationships in which a person becomes helplessly dependent on another, despite the fact that he is fully aware that this relationship is untenable. He feels as if the whole world will fall apart if he doesn't get kind words or smiles. He may feel anxious while waiting for a phone call or feel abandoned if the person he needs so much cannot see him. But he is unable to break this dependence. Usually the structure of emotional dependence is more complex. In a relationship in which one person becomes dependent on the other, there must be strong feeling grievances. The dependent person resents his enslavement; he resents being forced to obey, but continues to do so out of fear of losing the other. Not knowing that this situation is caused by his own anxiety, he easily comes to the conclusion that his submission was imposed on him by another person. He has to repress the indignation that grows on this basis, because he desperately needs the love of another person, and this repression in turn gives rise to new anxiety, with corresponding need restoring calm, and as a result, increases the desire to cling to another person. Thus, for certain people suffering from neurosis, emotional dependence causes a very real and even justified fear that their life is falling apart. When the fear is too strong, they may try to protect themselves from such dependence by not allowing themselves to feel attachment to anyone. Sometimes this position of dependence can undergo changes in the same person. Having gone through one or more painful experiences of this type, he may fight desperately against anything that bears even a remote resemblance to addiction. For example, a girl who went through several love stories, each of which ended in her complete dependence on the next partner, developed independent attitude to all men, striving only to maintain his power over them, without experiencing any feelings. Processes of this kind also clearly manifest themselves in relation to the patient during analysis. It is in his best interest to use the analytic session to gain insight, but he often ignores his own interests, trying to please the analyst and gain his interest or gain his approval. Despite the fact that there may be good reasons factors that encourage him to move faster in the process of analysis - because he suffers or makes sacrifices for the sake of analysis, or because he has only a limited period of time for analysis - these circumstances sometimes become completely insignificant. The patient spends hours talking long stories, just to earn the analyst's approval, or tries to make each analytic session interesting for the analyst, entertaining him and expressing his admiration for him. All this can lead the patient so far that his associations or even dreams will be determined by his desire to interest the analyst. Or he may fall madly in love with the analyst, sincerely believing that his only desire is to win his love, and will therefore try to impress the latter with the sincerity of his feelings. Here, too, the factor of promiscuity is very evident, since each analyst is perceived as a model of perfection or as the complete embodiment of the personal expectations of each individual patient. Of course, the analyst may turn out to be the kind of person whom the patient would love anyway, but this does not further explain the degree of emotional significance that the analyst acquires for the patient. This is what people usually mean when they talk about "transference." However, this term itself is not entirely correct, because transference must refer to the totality of the patient's irrational reactions towards the analyst, and not just to emotional dependence. The problem here is not so much why such dependence occurs in analysis, since people in need of such protection will cling to any doctor, social worker, friend, friend, family member, but why it is especially strong and why it happens so often. The answer is quite simple: among other things, analysis means working through the defenses erected against anxiety, and thus arousing the anxiety hiding behind the walls of these defenses. It is this increase in anxiety that causes the patient to cling tenaciously to the analyst in one way or another. Here again we find a difference from the child's need for love and affection: the child needs more love or help than an adult because he is more helpless, but this relationship does not have the character of an obsession. Only a child who is already anxious will cling to his mother's apron. The second characteristic feature of the neurotic need for love, also completely different from the child’s need, is its insatiability. Of course, a child can be capricious, demand excessive attention and endless proofs of love, but in this case he will be a neurotic child. Healthy child, raised in a warm and secure atmosphere, feels confident that he is desirable, does not require constant proof of this, and is satisfied when he receives the help he needs at the time. Neurotic gluttony can manifest itself in greed as a general character trait, found in food, shopping, and impatience. Most of the time, greed can be repressed, erupting suddenly, for example when humble person in a state of anxiety, he buys four new coats. In a milder form, it can manifest itself in the desire to live at someone else’s expense or in a more aggressive form of behavior of an octopus person. Greed, with all its variations and the internal prohibitions associated with it, is called the “oral” type of relationship and as such has been described in detail in the psychoanalytic literature. It is based on the reliable observation that greed often finds its expression in the need for food and in the manner of eating, as well as in dreams, which may reveal these same tendencies in a more primitive way, as, for example, in dreams with motives of cannibalism. However, these phenomena do not prove that we have to deal here with desires that are oral in origin and in essence. Therefore, it seems more logical to assume that food is, as a rule, just the most accessible way to satisfy the feeling of greed, whatever its source, just as in dreams food is the most concrete and primitive symbol for the expression of insatiable desires. There is no doubt that greed can manifest itself in the sexual sphere in actual sexual insatiability, as well as in dreams where sexual intercourse is identified with swallowing and biting. But it also manifests itself in accumulating money, purchasing clothes, pursuing ambitious or prestigious goals... The problem of greed is complex and still not solved. As a compulsion, it is definitely caused by anxiety. That greed is caused by anxiety may be quite obvious, as it often is, for example, with excessive masturbation or excessive eating. The connection between the two can also be shown by the fact that greed can decrease or disappear as soon as a person finds some confidence and peace: by feeling self-love, by gaining success, by doing creative work. For example, feeling loved can suddenly reduce the strength of your compulsive shopping urge. The girl, who constantly felt hungry, completely forgot about it as soon as she started working as a designer, receiving great pleasure from this work. On the other hand, greed may arise or increase as soon as hostility or anxiety increases; a person may feel an overwhelming need to make certain purchases before a performance about which he is very nervous, or, feeling rejected, he will greedily begin to eat. There are many people who experience anxiety who have not developed greed. This fact indicates the additional presence of some special conditions here. All that can be said with any certainty about these conditions is that greedy people do not believe in their ability to create and are therefore forced to rely on the external world to fulfill their needs; however, they believe that no one wants to give or provide anything to them. Those neurotics who are insatiable in their need for love usually show the same greed for material goods when they sacrifice their time or money for them, or when we're talking about about their receipt useful tips V specific situations, actually helping them with difficulties, receiving gifts, information, and sexual satisfaction. In some cases, these desires definitely reveal the need for proof of love; however, in other cases this explanation is not convincing. In these latter cases, one gets the impression that the neurotic in question simply wants to get something - love or something else - and that the desire for love, if it exists at all, only masks the extortion of certain tangible goods or benefits ... The desire for possession, as we will see later , is one of the fundamental forms of protection against anxiety. But experience also shows that in certain cases the need for love, although it is the predominant method of defense, can be repressed so deeply that it does not appear on the surface. Greed for material things can then take its place for a long time or temporarily. In connection with the question of the role of love and affection, three types of neurotics can be roughly distinguished. Regarding the persons of the first group, there is no doubt that these people strive for love, in whatever form it appears and whatever methods are used to achieve it. Neurotics belonging to the second group strive for love, but if they fail in any relationship - and, as a rule, they are doomed to failure - they completely withdraw from people and do not move closer to another person. Instead of trying to establish attachment to any person, they experience an obsessive need for things, food, shopping, reading or, generally speaking, getting something. Such a change can sometimes take grotesque forms, as in those people who, after suffering a failure in love, begin to obsessively eat food and gain weight. When a new love affair appears, they lose weight again, and another failure again ends in food abuse. Sometimes similar behavior can be observed in patients. After acute disappointment with the analyst, they begin to eat compulsively and gain so much weight that they become difficult to recognize, only to lose weight again when their relationship with the analyst improves. Such excesses in relation to food can also be repressed, and then it manifests itself in loss of appetite or functional gastric disorders of some type. In this group personal relationships violated more deeply than in the first group. Such persons still desire love and still dare to strive for it, but any disappointment can break the thread that binds them to others. The third group of neurotics were traumatized so severely and at such an early age that they conscious attitude became a position of deep disbelief in any kind of love and affection. Their anxiety is so deep that they are content with little - as long as no obvious harm is caused to them. They may acquire a cynical, mocking attitude towards love and will prefer to satisfy their real needs in material assistance, advice, and the sexual sphere. Only after they have gotten rid of most of their anxiety are they able to desire and appreciate love. The various attitudes characteristic of these three groups can be summarized as follows: insatiability in love; the need for love, alternating with greed in general; lack of a clearly expressed need for love combined with general greed. Each group showed increases in both anxiety and hostility. Returning to the main direction of our discussion, we should now consider the question of those special forms in which insatiability in love manifests itself. The main forms of its expression are jealousy and the demand for absolute, unconditional love. Neurotic jealousy, unlike the jealousy of a healthy person, which may be an adequate reaction to the danger of losing someone’s love, is completely disproportionate to the danger. It is dictated by the constant fear of losing possession of a given person or his love: as a result, any other interest that a given person may have poses a potential danger. This type of jealousy can manifest itself in all types human relations: from parents to their children who strive to make friends or get married; from children to parents; between spouses; in any love relationship. The relationship with the analyst is no exception. They appear in hypersensitivity in connection with the analyst's appointment with another patient, or even in connection with the mere mention of another patient. The formula here is: “You must love me exclusively.” The patient may say, “I know you treat me kindly, but since you probably treat others equally kindly, your kindness to me makes no difference.” Any feeling of love and affection that has to be shared with other people or interests is immediately and completely invalidated. Disproportionate jealousy is often seen as the result of childhood attacks of jealousy, when there was rivalry between children in the family or special affection for one of the parents. Rivalry among children in the family, in the form in which it occurs among healthy children (for example, jealousy of a newborn), disappears without leaving any scar as soon as the child feels confident that he has not lost anything from that love and attention that I had before. According to my experience, excessive jealousy that occurred in childhood and was subsequently not overcome is due to neurotic circumstances in the child’s life, similar to the neurotic conditions in the life of adults described above. The child already had an insatiable need for love and affection, arising from deep-seated anxiety. In psychoanalytic literature, the relationship between the reactions of infantile and adult jealousy is often defined ambiguously, since adult jealousy is called a “repetition” of infantile jealousy. If this relationship implies that adult woman is jealous of her husband because she previously also felt jealous of her mother, this, apparently, will not be logical. The intense jealousy which we find in a child's attitude towards his parents or towards his brothers or sisters is not the original cause of jealousy in later life, but both spring from the same sources. An expression of the insatiable need for love, perhaps even more powerful than jealousy, is the search for absolute love. The form in which this demand most often appears in consciousness is this: “I want to be loved for what I am, and not for what I do. We cannot yet see anything unusual in such a desire. Of course, the desire to be loved for our own sake is not alien to each of us. However, the neurotic desire for absolute love is much more demanding than the normal desire, and in its extreme form this desire is unrealizable. This is the demand of love, which literally does not allow any conditions or reservations. This requirement presupposes, firstly, the desire to be loved, despite any most provocative behavior. This desire is necessary as a safety measure because the neurotic deep down notes the fact that he is full of hostility and excessive demands, and as a result experiences understandable and appropriate fears that the other person may react with withdrawal, or anger, or revenge, if this hostility becomes apparent. A patient of this type will express his opinion that it is very easy to love a pleasant, sweet person, but that love must prove its ability to tolerate any behavior of the one one loves. Any criticism is perceived as a refusal of love. During the analysis, resentment and resentment may arise at the suggestion that the patient may have to change something in his personality, despite the fact that this is the purpose of the analysis, because he perceives any such hint as a frustration of his need for love and affection . The neurotic demand for absolute love includes, secondly, the desire to be loved without giving anything in return. This desire is obligatory because the neurotic feels that he is unable to experience any warmth or show love, and does not want to do so. His demands include, thirdly, the desire to be loved without receiving any benefit from it. This desire is mandatory because any advantage or satisfaction received in this situation by another person immediately arouses the neurotic’s suspicion that the other person loves him only for the sake of obtaining this advantage or satisfaction. In sexual relationships, these types of people will be jealous of the satisfaction that the other person receives from their relationship, because they believe that they are loved only for the sake of receiving such satisfaction. During the course of analysis, these patients regret the satisfaction the analyst receives from helping them. They will either belittle the help or, while mentally aware of it, be unable to feel any gratitude or attribute any improvement to some other source: the medication they are taking or the advice of a friend. They will be overcome by greed at the thought of the upcoming payment of the analyst's fee. Emotionally, they will perceive paying an analyst for his work as proof that the analyst is not interested in them. These types of people also tend to be awkward in giving gifts because the gifts make them doubt that they are loved. Finally, the requirement of absolute love includes the desire to accept sacrifices as evidence of someone's love. Only if the other person sacrifices everything for the sake of the neurotic can the latter really be sure that he is loved. These sacrifices may involve money or time, but they can also involve beliefs and personal integrity. Such a requirement includes, for example, the expectation of complete self-denial from the other. There are mothers who rather naively consider it fair to expect blind devotion and all kinds of sacrifices from their children, because they “gave birth to them in pain.” Other mothers repress their desire for absolute love, so they are able to give their children a lot real help and support; but such a mother does not receive any satisfaction from her relationship with her children, because she believes, as in the examples already mentioned, that the children love her only because they receive so much from her, and thus she regrets in her soul all that she gives them. The search for absolute love, with its ruthless and merciless disregard for all other people, shows more clearly than anything else the hostility hidden behind the neurotic demand for love. Unlike ordinary person A “vampire” who may have a conscious intention to exploit others to the maximum, the neurotic is usually completely unaware of how demanding he is. He has to keep his demands from becoming conscious for very good tactical reasons. Apparently, no one is able to frankly say: “I want you to sacrifice yourself for me without receiving anything in return.” He is forced to look for some grounds for his demands that justify them. For example, he can pretend to be sick and on this basis demand sacrifices from everyone. Another powerful reason for not being aware of your demands is that they are difficult to give up once they are established, and realizing that they are irrational is the first step to giving up them. They are rooted, in addition to the fundamentals already mentioned, in the deep conviction of the neurotic that he cannot live using his capabilities, that he must be provided with everything he needs, that all responsibility for his life lies with others and not with him. Therefore, abandoning his demands for absolute love presupposes a change in his entire attitude towards life. What is common to all characteristics of the neurotic need for love is that the neurotic’s own opposing aspirations block his path to the love he needs. What then are his reactions to the partial implementation of his demands or to their complete rejection?
Chapter 8. Paths to achieving love and sensitivity to rejection.
Reflecting on how urgently people suffering from neurosis need love and how difficult it is for them to accept love, one might assume that such people will feel best in a moderate emotional atmosphere. But here an additional difficulty arises: at the same time, they are painfully sensitive to any rejection or failure, no matter how minor. And the atmosphere of restraint, although in a certain sense it is calming, is perceived by them as rejection. It is difficult to describe the extent of their sensitivity to rejection. A change in the time of a date, the need to wait, a lack of immediate response, a disagreement with their opinion, any failure to fulfill their wishes - in short, any misfire or failure to fulfill their demands on their terms is perceived as a sharp refusal. And refusal not only throws them back into their deep-seated anxiety, but is also perceived as humiliation. I will explain later why they perceive rejection as humiliation. And since refusal does contain a certain humiliation, it causes the greatest anger that can be manifested openly. For example, a girl, in a fit of anger, threw a cat against the wall because it did not respond to her affection. If they are kept waiting, they interpret it to mean that they are considered so insignificant that they do not feel the need to be punctual with them; and this can cause explosions of hostile feelings or result in a complete withdrawal from all feelings, so that they become cold and indifferent, even if a few minutes ago they could have been looking forward to meeting. Most often, the connection between the feeling of being rejected and the feeling of irritation remains unconscious. This happens all the more easily because the refusal can be so insignificant that it escapes awareness. Then the person feels irritable, or becomes sarcastic or vindictive, or feels tired or depressed, or experiences headache without having the slightest idea of its cause. In addition, a hostile reaction may occur not only in response to rejection or what is perceived as rejection, but also in response to anticipation of rejection. A person may, for example, angrily ask about something, because inside he already anticipates a refusal. He may refrain from sending flowers to his girlfriend because he believes that she will see ulterior motives in such a gift. He may, for the same reason, be extremely afraid to express any kind feeling - tenderness, gratitude, appreciation - and thus appear to himself and others colder or more “callous” than he really is. Or he can mock women, thus taking revenge on them for the refusal that he only senses. The fear of rejection, if strongly developed, can lead a person to seek to avoid situations in which he may find himself rejected. People who fear any possible rejection will refrain from making any advances to the man or woman they like until they are absolutely sure that they will not be rejected. Men of this type usually resent having to ask girls to dance, as they fear that the girl may agree only out of politeness, and believe that women are in a much more advantageous position in this regard, since they do not have to show initiative. In other words, fear of rejection can lead to a number of strict internal prohibitions that fall under the category of “timidity.” Timidity serves as a defense against the danger of exposing oneself to the risk of rejection. This kind of defense is the belief that you are not loved. It is as if persons of this type were saying to themselves: “People don’t like me at all, so it’s better for me to stand aside and thus protect myself from any possible rejection.” Fear of rejection is thus a huge obstacle to the desire for love, because it prevents a person from making other people feel that he would like their attention. In addition, hostility provoked by feelings of rejection greatly contributes to a wary anxious attitude or even increases feelings of anxiety. It is an important factor in establishing a “vicious circle” that is difficult to avoid. This vicious circle, formed by various internal components of the neurotic need for love, can be represented in roughly schematic form as follows: anxiety; excessive need for love, including demands for exclusive and unconditional love; feeling rejected if this requirement is not met; extremely hostile reaction to rejection; the need to repress hostility due to fear of loss of love; tense state of unclear anger; increased anxiety; increased need for reassurance. Thus, the very same remedies that serve to calm anxiety, in turn, generate new hostility and new anxiety. The formation of a vicious circle is not only typical in the context in which it is discussed here; generally speaking, it is one of the most important processes for neuroses. Any defense mechanism in addition to its property of calming, relieving anxiety, it may also have the property of generating new anxiety. A person may become addicted to drinking to relieve anxiety, and then develop a fear that the drinking will in turn cause them harm. Or he may masturbate to relieve his anxiety and then become afraid that masturbation will make him sick. Or he may undergo some treatment to relieve his anxiety, but then soon begins to fear that the treatment may harm him. Education vicious circles is the main reason why severe neuroses progress and deepen, even if there are no changes in external conditions. The discovery of vicious circles, with all their internal links, is one of the main tasks of psychoanalysis. The neurotic himself is unable to grasp them. He notices the results of their influence only when he feels that he is in a hopeless situation. The feeling of being “trapped” is his reaction to the confusion and complexity of his situation, which he is unable to overcome. Any path that seems to be a way out of the dead end plunges him into new dangers. The question arises of finding those paths by following which a neurotic can receive the love for which he strives. In reality, he needs to solve two problems: firstly, how to get the love he needs and, secondly, how to justify for himself and for others the demand for such love. We can generally describe the various possible ways of obtaining love, such as bribery, appealing for pity, appealing for justice and, finally, threats. Of course, such a classification, like any similar enumeration of psychological factors, is not strictly categorical; it only indicates general trends. These various ways are not mutually exclusive. Some of them can be used simultaneously or alternately, depending on the situation, the overall character structure and the degree of hostility. In fact, the sequence in which these four ways of receiving love, affection, affection are given indicates an increase in the degree of hostility. When a neurotic tries to get love through bribery, the formula of his behavior can be expressed as follows: “I love you more than anything in the world, so you must give up everything for the sake of my love.” The fact that such tactics are used more often by women in our culture is a result of their living conditions. For centuries, love not only was a special sphere in the lives of women, but was the only or main means by which they could get what they wanted. While men have always been guided by the belief that in order to get something, you need to achieve something in life, women realized that through love, and only through love, they could achieve happiness, security and position in society. Such a different place in the culture of society had a serious impact on the psychology of men and women. It would be out of time to discuss this influence in this context, but one of its consequences is that in neuroses women are more likely than men to use love as a behavioral strategy. And at the same time, the subjective conviction of one’s love serves as a justification for making demands. People of this type are at particular risk of falling into a painful dependence on their love relationships. Suppose, for example, that a woman with a neurotic need for love experiences affection for a man of a similar type, who, however, withdraws as soon as she begins to show partiality towards him; the woman reacts to such rejection with intense hostility, which she represses for fear of losing him. If she tries to move away from him, he begins to win her over again. Then she not only represses her hostility, but carefully hides it behind increased devotion. She will be rejected again and will eventually respond with more love again. In this way she will gradually acquire the conviction that she is in the grip of a “great passion.” Another form of bribery is an attempt to win love by understanding a person, helping him in his mental and professional growth , in solving difficulties, etc. This form is used equally by both men and women. The second way to achieve love is to appeal to pity. The neurotic will expose his suffering and helplessness to others. The formula here is: “You must love me because I am suffering and helpless.” At the same time, such suffering serves to justify the right to make excessive demands. Sometimes such a plea is expressed absolutely openly. The patient indicates that he is a very sick person and therefore has the greatest right to the analyst's attention. He may be contemptuous of other patients who appear healthier on the outside and resent those people who are more successful at using this strategy. The desire to arouse pity may be mixed with a greater or lesser amount of hostility. The neurotic may simply appeal to our noble nature or extort favor through drastic means, such as putting himself in a distressing situation that forces us to help. Anyone who has encountered neurotics in social or medical work knows the important role of this strategy. There is an enormous difference between a neurotic who tells the truth about his difficulties and a neurotic who tries to excite pity by a dramatic display of his misfortunes. We can find these same tendencies in children of all ages, with the same variations: the child may either want to receive consolation in response to his complaint, or try to extort attention by unconsciously exaggerating a situation that frightens the parents, such as an inability to eat or urinate. Using the pity appeal involves believing one's inability to receive love and affection in any other way. This belief can be rationally justified by the lack of faith in love in general or take the form of the belief that in a given situation it is impossible to obtain love in any other way. In the third way of receiving love - a call for justice - the formula of behavior can be described as: “This is what I did for you; what will you do for me? In our culture, mothers often point out that they have done so much for their children that they deserve unflagging devotion. In a romantic relationship, the fact that a person is amenable to persuasion can be used as a basis for putting forward his claims. People of this type often show an over-willingness to help others, secretly expecting that they will get everything they want, and become seriously disappointed if others do not show the same desire to do things for them. I do not mean here those people who consciously count on this, but those who are completely alien to any conscious expectation of a possible reward. Their obsessive generosity can perhaps be more accurately described as a magical gesture. They do for others what they themselves want to receive from others. The fact that expectations of reciprocal reward were in fact at work here is revealed by the unusually acute pain of disappointment. Sometimes they take the form of a kind of mental ledger in which excessive sums are entered for such really useless sacrifices as, for example, a sleepless night. These people minimize or completely ignore what was done for them, thus falsifying the situation to such an extent that they feel entitled to demand special attention. This behavior leads to a boomerang effect on the neurotic himself, because he may become overly afraid of taking on obligations. Instinctively judging others by himself, he fears that he will be exploited if he accepts any services from them. The call for justice may also be made on the basis of what the neurotic would do for others if he had the opportunity. He will emphasize how loving and self-sacrificing he would be in the other person's place, believing that his demands are justified by the fact that he does not ask from others anything more than he would give himself. In fact, the psychology of such justification is more complex than he himself realizes. The idea that he has of his qualities is mainly an unconscious attribution to himself of the behavior that he demands from others. However, this is not an outright deception, for he does have a certain tendency towards self-sacrifice, arising from such sources as his lack of self-confidence, identifying himself with a fence dog, the urge to be as tolerant and condescending towards others as he would like others to see. The hostility that can be present in a call for justice is most evident when demands for justice are made on the basis of the need to redress an alleged harm. The formula of behavior in this case is as follows: “You made me suffer or harmed me, and therefore you are obliged to help me, take care of me or support me.” This strategy is similar to that used in traumatic neuroses. I have no personal experience study of traumatic neuroses, but I would be surprised if persons who acquired traumatic neuroses did not belong to this category and did not use the trauma as the basis for the demands that they would in any case be inclined to make. I will give several examples that show how a neurotic can arouse feelings of guilt or duty in order to justify own requirements. Unable to cope with her feelings, which were a reaction to her husband’s betrayal, the woman falls ill. She does not express any reproach, but her illness is clear evidence of a living reproach, designed to arouse a feeling of guilt in her husband and thus force him to devote all his attention to her. Another woman of this type, with obsessive and hysterical symptoms, behaves as follows: from time to time she insists on helping her sisters with housework. But after a few days of work, she unconsciously begins to deeply resent the fact that they accepted her help. Her symptoms become so severe that she is forced to go to bed, thus forcing the nurses not only to do without her help, but also to take on the additional burden of caring for her. Once again, the deterioration of her condition expressed blame and led to a demand for compensation at the expense of others. One day, when her sister expressed her opinion about her behavior, she fainted, thus demonstrating her indignation and extorting caring treatment. One of my patients began to feel worse and worse during her analysis. She had fantastic thoughts that the analysis would make her crippled and therefore in the future I would be obliged to take all the care of her upon myself. Reactions of this type are common in any type of medical treatment and are often accompanied by open threats against the doctor. To a lesser extent, cases of another type are typical: the patient's condition worsens significantly when there is a change of analyst (for example, when the analyst working with the patient goes on vacation). Explicitly or implicitly, the patient shows that the analyst is to blame for his deterioration and therefore has a special right to the analyst's attention. This example can easily be applied to the experience of everyday life. As these examples show, neurotic people of this type may tend to pay with suffering, even intense suffering, thus expressing their accusations and demands, although without realizing it. And as a result, they are able to maintain a sense of their own rightness. When a person uses threats as a strategy to gain love and affection, they may be threatening to harm either themselves or others. He will threaten to do something reckless, such as ruining one's reputation or causing violence to another or himself. Suicide threats or even suicide attempts are okay famous example. One of my patients got two husbands one after another with the help of such a threat. When the first man tried to leave her, she threw herself into the river in the city center; when the second man hinted that he had no intention of marrying her, she faked suicide by turning on the gas just before he arrived. This was her way of demonstrating her love. The neurotic will not carry out his threats as long as he hopes to achieve his goal. If he loses such hopes, he may realize them under the influence of despair or vindictiveness.
The book by the eminent German-American psychologist Karen Horney includes one of her most popular works " Neurotic personality our time".
Horney offers the reader an effective algorithm for analyzing and overcoming their internal complexes and conflicts. An intelligible and simple style of presentation makes the author’s thoughts understandable even to an unprepared reader.
“I tried to give a more complete and accurate description of a person living among us and suffering from neurosis, to describe the conflicts that really drive him, the experiences and the many difficulties that he experiences in relationships with people, as well as in relation to himself. I do not consider here any special type or types of neuroses, but I concentrate on the description of the character structure, which in our time is repeated in one form or another in almost all people suffering from neurosis.
Particular attention is paid not to the past, but to the neurotic’s current conflicts and attempts to resolve them, as well as his pressing anxieties and defenses created against them.”
On our website you can download the book “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time” by Horney Karen for free and without registration in epub, fb2, pdf format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.
Karen Horney (1885-1952) was born in the village of Blankenese near Hamburg. Her father, Berndt Danielsen, a Norwegian who took German citizenship, served as a captain on a transoceanic liner that sailed between Hamburg and North America. From a previous marriage he had four children. Mother - Clotilde van Roselen, of Dutch origin, was 18 years younger than her husband. Karen's parents were very different from each other. Fundamental differences in character and worldview subsequently led to the breakdown of the family and seriously affected the development of the daughter’s personality. Berndt Danielsen was a simple, rude and deeply religious man. His ideal was a patriarchal family, in which a woman was assigned the role of a submissive and uncomplaining mistress. Clotilde Danielsen was free-thinking in matters of religion. She was more educated and cultured person than her husband, and reluctantly accepted a lower position in the family. In general, she was a supporter of greater independence for women.
Karen Danielsen had a bright mind, a thirst for knowledge and a strong desire for self-affirmation. In her opinion, her parents' sympathies always belonged to her older brother Berndt; She felt like an unwanted and unloved child. These experiences also gave rise to a feeling of one's own physical imperfection, which was absolutely not true: Karen was very attractive. She decided for herself: if she can’t be beautiful, she needs to be smart and determined.
Horney first turned to psychoanalysis as a patient due to an exacerbation of depression and anxiety in 1911. These symptoms arose as a consequence of deep feelings caused by the death of the mother. The ambivalent attitude towards his father, the internal contradiction between career and home, and the accumulating problems in marital relations. However, the course of treatment was not completed and was interrupted after less than a year. Horney wrote in her diary that she was disappointed with the results of her treatment.
Having mastered psychoanalytic method, Horney since 1919 ran her own practice. From her own experience, Horney was convinced that mental activity man cannot be adequately explained by his biological nature. She advocated a sociological orientation of psychoanalysis, believing that intrapersonal conflicts are generated mainly by social factors. In 1937, her first book was published, “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time,” devoted to an analysis of the role of social factors in the emergence of neuroses.
In this book, the author managed to fully and accurately describe a person living among us and suffering from neurosis, with his conflicts, experiences and the many difficulties that he experiences in relationships with people, as well as in relation to himself. K. Horney focuses on describing the character structure, which in our time is repeated in one form or another in almost all people suffering from neurosis. Particular attention is paid not to the past, but to the neurotic’s current conflicts and attempts to resolve them, as well as his pressing anxieties and defenses created against them. The book is written in accessible language and is addressed not only to psychiatrists and psychologists, but also to teachers, social workers, anthropologists, and even... neurotics themselves. It includes fifteen chapters. Let's look at them in more detail.
Chapter 1. CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT OF UNDERSTANDING NEUROSES.
The term "neurotic", although medical in origin, cannot be used without taking into account cultural aspects. For example, in our country a person who talks for an hour with his deceased grandfather would be considered a recognized neurotic or psychopath, while such communication with ancestors is considered a recognized pattern among some Indian tribes. The concept of what is normal changes not only across cultures, but also, over time, within the same culture (for example, the concept of marriage).
Horney highlighted the following criteria neurosis .
1 . Neurosis assumes deviation from the norm. At the same time, people can deviate from the general pattern without suffering from neurosis. Therefore, psychological and medical analysis is necessary to determine the degree of deviation.
2
. There are always some types of internal prohibitions. They have two characteristics that can be found in all neuroses without a deep study of the personality structure:
- rigidity of response - the lack of flexibility that allows us to react in different ways to different situations. For example, a normal person becomes suspicious when he feels or sees reasons for it; a neurotic can be suspicious all the time, regardless of the situation, whether he is aware of his condition or not. A normal person may feel indecisive at times when faced with an important and difficult issue; a neurotic person is constantly indecisive. Rigidity, however, indicates the presence of neurosis when it deviates from cultural patterns.
The discrepancy between the potential capabilities of a given person and his actual life achievements is caused only by external factors. But it may indicate the presence of neurosis: if, despite his talents and favorable external opportunities for their development, a person remains infertile; or, having a brilliant appearance, a woman does not consider herself attractive. In other words, the neurotic stands in his own way.
3. The presence of anxiety and the defenses that are built against it. Anxiety is a neurotic phenomenon in cases where the following factors are taken into account: a neurotic person experiences not only general cultural fears, but also adds individual ones; expenditure of greater energy potential than required by the same situation in a healthy person. Anxiety is the engine that starts the neurotic process and maintains its course.
4. The presence of a conflict of contradictory tendencies, the existence of which the neurotic himself is not aware of and in relation to which he involuntarily tries to find certain compromise solutions.
Conclusion: Neurosis is a mental disorder caused by fears and defenses against them, as well as attempts to find compromise solutions to the conflict of multidirectional tendencies. It must also deviate from the generally accepted pattern in a given culture.
Chapter 2. WHAT MAKES US TALK ABOUT THE "NEUROTIC PERSONALITY OF OUR TIMES."
When Karen Horney talks about neuroses, she means character neuroses, that is, those conditions in which the main disorder is character deformation. Character neuroses are the result of a hidden chronic process that begins, as a rule, in childhood and, to varying degrees, covers more or less extensive areas in the general structure of the personality. Using external observation, Horney classified the relationships of neurotics with people into 5 groups:
1. Relationships of love, affection and affection. One of the dominant characteristics of neurotics today is their excessive dependence on the approval or affection of other people. Neurotics have an indiscriminate hunger for favor or appreciation, regardless of whether they themselves love the person or whether the person's judgment has any meaning for them. At the same time, this sensitivity can be hidden under the mask of indifference.
2. Relationships related to the assessment of “I” (internal insecurity). A constant characteristic of them is their feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. They can manifest themselves in many ways - such as beliefs in one's incompetence, stupidity, or unattractiveness, which can exist without any basis in reality. These feelings of inferiority can manifest themselves openly in the form of complaints or worries, and self-attributed shortcomings can be perceived as a fact that does not require proof. On the other hand, they may be hidden behind compensatory needs for self-aggrandizement, behind the obsessive tendency to show oneself in a favorable light, to impress others and oneself, using all the possible attributes that accompany prestige in our culture, such as money, extraordinary knowledge .
3. Relationships related to self-affirmation. By self-affirmation Horney means the act of asserting one's self or one's claims. In this area, neurotics discover a wide range of prohibitions. They have internal inhibitions about expressing their desires or requests for something, doing something in their own interests, expressing an opinion or justified criticism, ordering someone, choosing a person with whom they want to communicate, establishing contacts with people and so on. Particularly important is also the inability to plan anything.
4. Relationships associated with aggression are actions directed against someone, attacks, humiliation of other people, encroachment on the rights of others. Disorders of this kind manifest themselves in two completely different forms. First form consists of a tendency to be aggressive, domineering, overly demanding, bossy, deceiving, critical, or finding fault. Most often, such people are not in the least aware of their aggression and are subjectively convinced of their sincerity and rightness. Second form- the opposite. On the surface lies the easily detectable feeling that they are constantly being deceived, controlled, scolded or humiliated. These people also often do not realize that this is only their own distorted perception; on the contrary, they believe that the whole world is against them and is deceiving them.
5. Relationships related to sexuality are divided into two types: it is either an obsessive need for sexual activity, or a ban on it.
Conclusion: all relationships, no matter how heterogeneous they may seem, are structurally interconnected.
Chapter 3. ANXIETY.
Anxiety is the dynamic center of neuroses. Horney traces the fundamental differences between fear and anxiety. Both fear and anxiety are adequate reactions to danger, but in the case of fear, the danger is obvious, objective, and in the case of anxiety it is hidden and subjective. In other words, the intensity of anxiety is proportional to the meaning that a given situation has for a given person. The reasons for his anxiety are essentially unknown to him. Horney identifies 3 attitudes of neurotics to anxiety.
1) neurotics who are fully aware that they are filled with anxiety. Its manifestations vary enormously: it can manifest itself in the form of vague anxiety, in the form of attacks of fear; may be tied to certain situations or actions, such as fear of heights, streets, public performances; may have a certain content, for example, fear of going crazy, getting cancer, swallowing a needle.
2) neurotics who are aware that they experience anxiety from time to time, knowing or not knowing about the circumstances causing it, but they do not attach any significance to it.
3) neurotics who are only aware of the presence of depression, feelings of inferiority, disorders in sexual life, and the like, but are not fully aware that they have ever experienced or are experiencing a feeling of anxiety.
In our culture, there are 4 ways to avoid anxiety:
1. Rationalization (a person’s search for reasonable and logical explanations for his negative actions) is the best way to justify his evasion of responsibility. It involves turning anxiety into rational fear.
2. Denial of the existence of anxiety, i.e. eliminating it from consciousness, accompanied by physical signs (nausea, vomiting, enuresis, sweating, etc.) and psychological (feelings of impatience, a feeling of a sudden attack, paralysis). We can feel all these feelings and physical sensations when we are afraid and aware of this fear. All that a neurotic can achieve on his own is to eliminate obvious manifestations anxiety. But Freud said that the disappearance of symptoms is not a sufficient sign of cure. Still, this result should not be underestimated. It may have practical value and may also have psychological value in increasing self-esteem.
3.
Drowning anxiety with drugs. It can be resorted to deliberately through the use of alcohol or drugs. However, there are many ways to do this, and not so obvious ones. 1 way immersion in social activities under the influence of fear of loneliness. 2 way drug suppression of anxiety - an attempt to “drown” it in work. 3 way– excessive need for sleep, although sleep does not contribute to the actual restoration of strength. 4 way- sexual activity, through which anxiety can be alleviated.
4.
Avoiding thoughts, feelings, urges, or situations that cause anxiety. This may be a conscious process when, for example, a person who is afraid to dive into water avoids doing so. More precisely, a person may be aware of the presence of anxiety and the fact that he is avoiding it. However, he may also be very vaguely aware - or not at all aware - of the presence of anxiety and ways to get rid of it. He may, for example, without realizing it, put off from day to day things that cause anxiety: making decisions, going to the doctor.
In turn, if such avoidance acts involuntarily, then we are faced with phenomenon of internal prohibition. Inhibition is the inability to do, feel or think certain things, and its function is to relieve the anxiety that arises if a person tries to do, feel or think these things. Internal inhibitions are most effectively represented in hysterical loss of functions: hysterical blindness, muteness or paralysis of the limbs.
Conditions necessary to realize the presence of internal prohibitions:
1. We must be aware of the desire to do something in order to be aware of the inability to do it (for example, a person listening to a scientific report and making critical judgments about it).
2. Awareness may be hindered by a prohibition that fulfills such important function in a person’s life, that he perceives it as a fact that cannot be doubted or changed (for example, anxiety associated with hard work).
3. Perhaps the prohibitions of an individual cannot be understood at all if they coincide with the forms of prohibitions approved in the culture or with the corresponding ideological attitudes.
Conclusion: Our culture creates enormous anxiety in the people living in it. Consequently, virtually everyone has built one or another of the forms of defense mentioned by Karen Horney.
Chapter 4. ANXIETY AND HOSTILITY.
A person experiencing anxiety feels a powerful, inevitable danger against which he is completely powerless. Such danger is generated or intensified by internal psychological factors, while helplessness is caused by a person’s own attitude, i.e. subjective factor. The basis of anxiety lies not in sexual desires, as Freud believed, but in hostile impulses associated with them (the desire to hurt or humiliate a partner through sexual relations). In fact, hostile impulses form the main source from which neurotic anxiety arises. But there is a need to study in more detail the psychological consequences that arise as a result of the repression of hostility. To repress hostility means to pretend that everything is fine, and thus to withdraw from the fight when we should fight, or at least when we would like to fight. Therefore, the first inevitable consequence of such repression is that it gives rise to a feeling of defenselessness. If hostility is repressed, the person has no idea that he is experiencing it.
When a person is aware of his anger, its manifestation is limited in 3 respects:
1.
Taking into account circumstances allows you to analyze and control the situation.
2.
If anger relates to the person he needs, then sooner or later anger is included in the complex of all his feelings.
3. Awareness of your own principles as an individual allows you to restrain the manifestations of hostile impulses.
If anger is uncontrolled, then the possibility of restriction is cut off, and as a result, hostile impulses overflow restrictive barriers both from within and without. There is an awareness of the presence of affect, a projection of anger onto the outside world.
Horney offers a classification of forms of anxiety that arise as a result of the repression of hostility:
A. A person perceives danger as coming from his own motives - a direct result of repression.
B. Danger is felt as a threat from the outside - projection (endowing another person with one’s own motives and traits).
Groups are divided into subgroups:
1) Danger is felt as a threat to the Self. 2) Danger is felt as a threat to others.
4 main types of anxiety:
1A: Danger is felt to arise from one's own motives and threaten the self. Example: Phobia associated with the urge to jump from a height.
2A: Danger is perceived as coming from one's own motives and threatening others. Example: Fear of hurting someone.
1B: Danger is felt as coming from outside and threatening the Self. Example: Fear of thunderstorms.
2B: Danger is perceived as coming from outside and threatening others. Hostility is projected onto the outside world and the original object of hostility is preserved. Example: Anxiety of overprotective mothers about dangers threatening their children.
An extremely important point The driving force behind neurosis is that anxiety and hostility are inextricably intertwined.
Horney's psychoanalytic concept of anxiety differs in some respects from Freud's understanding. Freud put forward two points of view on anxiety.
1. Anxiety arises as a result of repression of drives (it related to sexual drive and had the nature of a physiological interpretation).
2. Anxiety arises as a result of fear of drives, the detection of which entails external danger (it related to sexual drive, aggressive impulses and was of a psychological interpretation nature).
Horney integrates these two points of view: anxiety arises largely from fear of our repressed drives.
Freud: Anxiety arises as a result of any impulse that causes external danger. Horney: limits motivations to cultural patterns acceptable to society's taboos.
Freud: Anxiety originates in childhood and influences neuroses that arise in adulthood. Horney: believes that we are not seeing a repetition of complexes, but their further development. And anxiety in general is not an infantile reaction.
Chapter 5. BASAL STRUCTURE OF NEUROSES.
Horney believes that to understand the development of neurosis it is necessary to turn to childhood.
What neurotics have in common is environment, which exhibits the following features in various combinations:
1. Lack of genuine affection and warmth of parents for the child, probably due to their own neuroses (manifested in overprotection, self-sacrifice on the part of the “ideal” mother, preference for other children). A child can endure a lot of what are often considered traumatic factors - sudden weaning, periodic beatings, sexual experiences - but all this as long as in his soul he feels that he is desired and loved.
2. A cultural ban on pleasure in general and sexual pleasure in particular (the formation of frustration).
3. Jealousy of a significant object (can be artificially stimulated by the atmosphere in which the child grows up)
A danger in the formation of a child’s character (and, accordingly, a cause for anxiety) is the repression of hostility. The reasons for “repressive” behavior can be:
Helplessness is not so much biological as social, due to intimidation, babying, and emotional dependence. The more helpless a child becomes, the less he can dare to resist in his feelings or actions. What happens in this situation can be expressed by the following formula: I have to repress my hostility because I need you .
Fear arises from both direct (threats, prohibitions, punishment) and indirect reasons (observation of emotional outbursts, scenes of violence). How stronger child filled with fears, the less he will dare to show or even feel hostility. The following formula is valid here: I have to repress my hostility because I'm afraid of you
Love - the absence of sincere affection, is often replaced by copious verbal assurances about how much the parents love the child with only verbal assurances. A child may cling to this surrogate of love and be afraid to misbehave, so as not to lose this reward for his obedience. In such situations, the child acts according to the following formula: I have to repress hostility for fear of losing love
.
- feeling of guilt - the child is instilled with guilt for any expression of indignation, disobedience and resentment towards parents, which are unacceptable in society. How stronger than a child make him feel guilty, the less he will dare to feel ill will or make accusations against his parents. In this situation the formula is valid: I have to repress my hostility because I will bad child if I show it
.
In various combinations, any of the factors mentioned above can cause a child to repress his hostility and ultimately create anxiety.
However, infantile anxiety does not always lead to neurosis. And only with a combination of unfavorable environmental factors, as well as the family factor especially highlighted by Horney, does it provide fertile ground for the formation of a feeling of loneliness, rejection, reduces the ability to self-defense and makes a person more vulnerable and touchy. Horney calls this personality type basal anxiety (an intense and pervasive feeling of insecurity).
Characteristics of Basal Anxiety:
1. Basic anxiety underlies our attitude towards people. Neuroses are formed as a result of neurotic reactions to individual conflict situations involving individual people whose personal relationships are not broken.
2. The significance of basal neuroses is manifested in relation to simple situational neuroses: in the second case, a rapid therapeutic effect is observed, where there is an adequate relationship between conflict and neurotic reactions, and in character neuroses such a connection is absent and the slightest reason causes an acute reaction to stress.
3. Basal anxiety operates within certain limits, varying only in degree and intensity. It can be roughly described as a feeling of one’s own insignificance, helplessness, abandonment, and exposure to danger.
4. Lack of awareness of basal anxiety in neurosis.
5. Although basal anxiety applies to people it may be completely devoid of personality and transformed into a sense of danger emanating from thunderstorms, political events, germs, accidents, canned food.
6. In philosophy and religion, the understanding of basal anxiety is the norm (“Fear of the Creator”: fear of death, illness, old age, the elements, etc.), but not in relation to culture.
7. Basal Anxiety affects a person’s attitude towards themselves and others. It means emotional isolation, all the more unbearable because it is combined with a feeling of inner weakness of the “I”. And this means weakening the very basis of self-confidence.
In our culture there are 4 main remedies for basal anxiety:
1. Receiving love in any form- expressed in the formula “if you love me, you will not harm me.”
2. Submission - expressed in the formula “if I give in, no harm will be done to me.”
3. The desire to achieve security through gaining real power, success– expressed in the formula “if I have power, no one can offend me.”
4. Reaction of leaving - (renunciation of one’s own desires) is expressed in the formula “if I react by leaving, nothing will hurt me.”
Any method, provided that only it is used, makes it possible to gain peace of mind, however, at the expense of the impoverishment of the personality as a whole. Very often a person combines methods, which leads to the emergence of contradictory tendencies and forms neurosis. As Horney notes, the desire for love and the desire for power most often collide.
Conclusion: neurosis arises only if this conflict gives rise to anxiety and if attempts to reduce anxiety lead in turn to defensive tendencies, which, although equally urgent, are nevertheless incompatible with each other.
Chapter 6. NEUROTIC NEED FOR LOVE AND ATTACHMENT.
The greatest role in neuroses is played by: the thirst for love and affection and the thirst for power and control of other people. The neurotic is faced with a dilemma: he is incapable of love, but nevertheless he urgently needs love from others.
The neurotic is extremely demanding in his feelings towards him. Love for a neurotic is the need to gain confidence and calmness, while he ignores the personality of the other person. It is based on basic hostility – contempt and envy.
Love offered to such a person can not only meet with mistrust, but also cause a certain anxiety and a feeling of horror. Finally, showing love can trigger fears of dependency. To avoid this, he must keep himself from realizing that others are kind or helpful and continue to persist in the idea that other people are unfriendly, uninterested in him, and even evil.
Conclusion: for a person filled with basal anxiety and therefore seeking love and affection as a means of defense, the chances of receiving this so passionately desired love and affection are extremely unfavorable.
Chapter 7. ADDITIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEUROTIC NEED FOR LOVE.
The neurotic need for love is anxiety, the feeling that no one loves you, the inability to believe in someone's love and affection, and a hostile attitude towards all people.
Distinctive features neurotic need for love
:
1. Obsession and totality. For a neurotic, receiving love is a vital necessity (“I need to be loved, no matter what the cost”). This desire can apply to everyone indiscriminately (from the hairdresser to friends). The neurotic is incapable of being alone - ranging from mild restlessness and anxiety to a pronounced horror of loneliness. For the love of another person, a neurotic will pay any price for it, mostly without realizing it. The most common price for love is a position of submission (complete devotion, admiration, obedience.) and emotional dependence.
2. Gluttony. For example, a child may be capricious, demand excessive attention and endless proofs of love, but in this case he will be a neurotic child. Neurotic gluttony can manifest itself in greed as a general character trait, found in food, shopping, and impatience. Under special conditions, greed may not manifest itself: greedy people do not believe in the ability to be creative and constantly feel the need to possess (which is one of the forms of protection against anxiety).
There are 2 forms of expressing gluttony:
1. Jealousy - is dictated by the constant fear of losing possession of a given person or his love: as a result, any other interest that a given person may have poses a potential danger.
2. Demanding absolute, unconditional love- the demand for love, which literally does not allow any conditions or reservations (“I want to be loved for what I am, and not for what I do”). This requirement assumes:
- Firstly, the desire to be loved, despite any most defiant behavior. This desire is necessary as a safety measure, because the neurotic, deep down in his soul, notes the fact that he is full of hostility.
- Secondly, the desire to be loved without giving anything in return (the neurotic feels that he is unable to experience any warmth and show love, and does not want to do this).
- Thirdly, the desire to be loved without receiving any benefit from it.
- fourthly, the desire to accept sacrifices as proof of someone's love. Only if the other person sacrifices everything for the sake of the neurotic can the latter really be sure that he is loved.
Refusing these demands means an unacceptable change in your entire life.
In connection with the role of love and affection, there are 3 types of neurotics:
1. People strive for any form of love, using all means to achieve it.
2. People strive for love, but if they fail, they distance themselves from people and do not move closer to another person.
3. A position of deep disbelief in any kind of love and affection, due to severe trauma inflicted at an early age. Their anxiety is so deep that they are content with little - as long as they are not caused any obvious harm.
Conclusion: the neurotic realizes oppositely directed aspirations that block his path to the love he needs.
Chapter 8. WAYS TO ACHIEVE LOVE AND SENSITIVITY TO REJECTION.
Neurotics have a painful sensitivity to any rejection or refusal, no matter how insignificant it may be. Changing the time of the date, having to wait, lack of immediate response, disagreeing with their opinion, i.e. any misfire or failure to achieve their demands on their terms is perceived as a harsh refusal. And refusal not only throws them back into their deep-seated anxiety, but is also perceived as humiliation. This causes the greatest anger that can be expressed openly. For example, a girl, in a fit of anger, threw a cat against the wall because it did not respond to her affection. Most often, the connection between the feeling of being rejected and the feeling of irritation remains unconscious.
Fear of rejection can lead to a number of strict internal prohibitions that fall under the category of “timidity.” Timidity serves as a defense against the danger of exposing oneself to the risk of rejection. This kind of defense is the belief that you are not loved.
Drugs that serve to calm anxiety in a healthy person, for a neurotic person, generate new hostility and anxiety and develop a feeling "vicious circle", the impossibility of finding a way out of the deadlock. The formation of vicious circles is the main reason why severe neuroses progress and deepen, even if there are no changes in external conditions.
A neurotic has the following ways in which he can receive love (their sequence indicates an increasing degree of hostility):
1. Form of bribery - “I love you more than anything in the world, so you must give up everything for my love” (more often used by women). Expressed either in the desire to achieve love, or in the manifestation of understanding, constant selfless help - there is a risk of painful dependence on one’s love relationships.
2. Appeal to stings awns– “You must love me because I suffer and am helpless” (at the same time demands are made).
3. Call for justice - “This is what I have done for you; what will you do for me? People of this type often show an over-willingness to help others, secretly expecting to get everything they want, and feel seriously disappointed if others do not show the same desire to do things for them.
4. Call for justice -2 - “You made me suffer or harmed me, and therefore you are obliged to help me, take care of me and support me” - the need to compensate for the allegedly caused harm, while maintaining a sense of one’s own righteousness.
Conclusion: when a person uses threats as a strategy to gain love and affection, he may threaten to harm either himself or another. The neurotic will not carry out his threats as long as he hopes to achieve his goal. If he loses such hopes, he may realize them under the influence of despair or vindictiveness.
Chapter 9. THE ROLE OF SEXUALITY IN THE NEUROTIC NEED FOR LOVE.
The neurotic need for love and affection often takes the form of sexual passion, but, as Horney argues, one cannot draw a clear equation between tenderness in love and sexuality. Sexuality can exist without love and tenderness, and love and tenderness can exist without sexual feelings. Sexy shape expressing the need for love depends on whether external circumstances are favorable to it or not. It also depends on the culture, temperament, vital energy of a person, and satisfaction with sexual life.
But there is an individual variation in the forms of manifestation (as anxiety decreases) depending on the degree of physical satisfaction achieved.
common feature: indiscriminate choice of partners, deep disturbances in emotional contact with people, imaginary bisexuality, constant reactions of anger towards the psychoanalyst; abstinence becomes impossible. All neurotics can be divided into groups:
1. People with continuous sexual relations. They feel unsafe, insecure and extremely unstable when they are out of any connection or do not see a direct opportunity to establish one;
2. People who have limited connections, but tend to create an erotic atmosphere in relationships with other people, regardless of whether they feel special affection for them or not (a large number of internal prohibitions);
3. People with even greater sexual inhibitions, who, however, are easily sexually aroused and compulsively look for a potential sexual partner in every man or woman.
In the past few years, some psychoanalysts have harbored the possibility increased sexual desires due to the fact that sexual arousal and satisfaction serve as an outlet for anxiety and accumulating psychological stress. The connection between sexuality and the need for love sheds light on the problem sexual abstinence. However, a person who needs sexuality as a means of alleviating anxiety is especially unable to tolerate any abstinence, even short-term.
Conclusion: the importance is realized sex life for culture as a whole. However, many neurotic reactions are recognized as sexual, including the neurotic need for love.
Chapter 10. THE DESIRE FOR POWER, PRESTIGE AND POSSESSION.
The desire for power, prestige and possession is another way of getting rid of anxiety, which is considered as a whole in virtue of obtaining peace through weakening contact with others and through strengthening one's own position.
The neurotic desire for power is born from anxiety, hatred and feelings of inferiority, i.e. out of weakness. Cultural pressure is also important here.
Neurotic desires for power, prestige and possession serve not only as a defense against anxiety, but also as a channel through which repressed hostility can be released.
Characteristics of aspirations:
1. To power - protection from helplessness, protection from the danger of feeling or looking insignificant (contempt for weakness, including your own). This manifests itself in the desire to manage, control others and oneself; such a person is always right and irritable when someone points out that he is wrong, insists on his own, strives to never retreat or give up.
2. Towards prestige - protection from helplessness, protection from the danger of feeling insignificant, the need to impress, to arouse admiration, a dreamer, a dandy, unconsciously haunted by a feeling of humiliation, externally expressed in anger, a narcissist for the sake of protection.
3. Towards possession - protection from helplessness, protection from the danger of feeling insignificant, a feeling of fear of impoverishment, deprivation, dependence on others. Manifests itself in the inability to enjoy material and spiritual values.
Depending on which drive is dominant, hostility may take the form of a tendency to dominate, a tendency to humiliate, or a tendency to infringe on the interests of others.
- Domination, characteristic of the neurotic desire for power, does not necessarily appear overtly as hostility towards others. It can be hidden in socially significant or friendly forms, manifesting itself, for example, as a tendency to give advice, a desire to direct the affairs of other people, in the form of initiative or leadership.
In people for whom the desire for prestige comes first, hostility usually takes the form desires to humiliate others. This desire comes to the fore especially in those people whose self-esteem has been dealt a humiliating blow, as a result of which they become vindictive.
In possessive tendencies, hostility usually takes the form of a tendency infringe on the interests of other people. Manifests itself in the desire to deceive, steal, exploit or upset the affairs of others. Neurotics often do not realize that they are deliberately infringing on the interests of people; this is usually accompanied emotionally by acute envy.
Chapter 11. NEUROTIC COMPETITION.
In our culture, a person must fight for his achievements and enter into competition and struggle with others, which becomes the center of neurotic conflict.
Neurotic rivalry has 3 features, manifested in all areas of a neurotic’s life:
1. A neurotic constantly compares himself to others, even in situations that do not require this. The neurotic tests his strength with people who are in no way his potential rivals.
2. The neurotic's desire is not limited to achieving more than others or having greater success, but also implies a desire to be unique and exceptional. His goal is always complete superiority, i.e. he is driven by unflagging ambition. At the same time, there is an incredible sensitivity to any disappointment.
3. Hidden hostility, characteristic of the neurotic’s ambition, his attitude that “no one but me should be beautiful, capable, successful.” In a person suffering from neurosis, the destructive aspect is stronger than the creative one: it is more important for him to see others defeated than to succeed himself (there are strong internal prohibitions regarding success). The neurotic is motivated by a blind, indiscriminate and obsessive desire to humiliate others.
The spirit of competition also influences existing relationships between men and women and influences the choice of partner.
Conclusion: Competition is a problem in our culture, and it is not at all surprising to find it as a constant center of neurotic conflicts.
Chapter 12. AVOIDANCE TO COMPETITION.
Because of its destructive nature, rivalry between people suffering from neurosis generates enormous anxiety and, as a result, causes aversion to competition .
Sources of anxiety in a situation of competition:
1) fear of retribution for success;
2) the desire to be loved by everyone (this situation, when a person is caught between ambition and love, is one of the central conflicts in neuroses). You can’t “go over people’s heads” and be loved by them at the same time. But the neurotic is looking for solutions:
- through justification of one’s desire to rule and grief over its failure to be realized (an attempt to make one’s demands undeniable);
By restraining your ambition.
Direct results of anxiety associated with neurotic rivalry are:
Fear of failure is an expression of the fear of being humiliated. Any failure becomes a disaster. The neurotic's greatest fear is public defeat in a rivalry. Therefore, a neurotic usually considers it safer to do what will not harm him, rather than what he wants to do.
Fear succeed Ha stems from the fear of causing the envy of others and thus losing their favor. When experiencing this fear, suffering from neurosis, a person is more often aware not of the fear itself, but only of the internal prohibitions that arise on its basis. For example, when talking with a person who is intellectually inferior to him, he is forced to lower his intellectual level, fearing that his superiority will offend and humiliate his interlocutor. Conflict situation in a neurotic person stems from a desperate and obsessive desire to be first and from an equally strong obsessive urge to restrain oneself.
- self-deprecation - a neurotic creates in his imagination such a distance between himself and his real or imaginary rival that any rivalry seems absurd and is therefore eliminated from consciousness. By lowering one's self-image and thereby placing oneself lower than other people and restraining one's ambition, a person reduces the anxiety associated with competition. But belittling one's own self leads to a weakening of self-confidence.
Conclusion: the tendency to reject competition ultimately leads to the refusal of any risk, gives rise to real life failures and draws a person into a world of fantasy .
Chapter 13. NEUROTIC FEELING OF GUILT.
Manifestation of guilt:
He explains his suffering not by deservedness of another fate;
Constant self-recrimination, which is often fantastic or at least greatly exaggerated, but leads to depression;
Fear of exposure and disapproval is very common in neuroses. Almost every neurotic, even if at first glance he seems absolutely self-confident and indifferent to the opinions of others, experiences extreme fear or is hypersensitive to disapproval, criticism, accusations, exposure;
There is a need for punishment to get rid of feelings of guilt.
Fear of disapproval is leading in the formation of feelings of guilt. It has a number of internal meanings (gradually the disapproval of the external world transfers to one’s self) and manifests itself in various forms:
Fear of causing irritation;
Reluctance to reveal others' personal life - fear of revealing his insincerity, manifested in hiding aggression, weakness in his sense of self;
Avoiding any criticism by trying to be perfect or always right;
Seeking salvation in ignorance, illness or helplessness;
Self-image as a victim;
Intellectualization of existing problems.
The purpose of guilt and self-blame is to achieve peace and escape from the real state of affairs. A neurotic person has factors that prevent him from expressing criticism or accusations against someone:
1. Lack of spontaneous self-confidence.
2. Basal anxiety.
3. Fear of exposure and accusation of the neurotic himself.
The external manifestation of the fear of accusation and attempts to overcome it is extremely contradictory and has a certain quality of detachment from reality, is not emotionally rich enough (in order to defuse the situation) and is often expressed in psychosomatic diseases.
Conclusion: When a neurotic blames himself or indicates the presence of feelings of guilt of one kind or another, the first question should be what the functions of such self-blame might be. The main functions that Horney discovered were: the manifestation of fear of disapproval; protection from this fear; protection from making accusations.
Chapter 14. THE MEANING OF NEUROTIC SUFFERING (THE PROBLEM OF MASOCHISM).
Suffering becomes a means to achieve certain goals. Term "masochism" originally related to sexual perversions and fantasies in which sexual satisfaction is achieved through suffering, through beatings, torture, rape, enslavement, humiliation. Freud proposed the concept of "moral" masochism, arguing that man also has a general tendency to suffer. Thus, the neurotic strives for satisfaction in this form and is ready to endure suffering. The difference between sexual and moral masochism is the degree of awareness. In masochism, both are unconscious.
Horney suggests looking at the problem of suffering solely from psychological point vision. She highlights functions of neurotic suffering:
1. For a neurotic, suffering may have the value of direct protection and may often be the only way in which he is able to protect himself from impending danger.
2. Suffering also serves for him as a way to achieve what he wants, to effectively realize his demands and to give these demands a legal basis.
3. Suffering and helplessness become for him by powerful means receiving love and affection, help, control and at the same time giving him the opportunity to avoid the demands placed on him by other people.
4. Suffering serves the function of expressing accusations against other people in a disguised, effective way.
Suffering from neuroses is a consequence of existing personal conflicts and disagreements. There are needs that fall into the category of masochistic drives. This factor is the desire to exaggerate the drama of the situation. Exaggeration provides benefits: it allows you to escape from reality and reduce the significance and painfulness of the event.
To understand the effectiveness of exaggerated pain, Horney considers elements that underlie masochism:
A feeling of inner weakness (one's own insignificance or insignificance). This feeling manifests itself in relation to oneself, to other people, to fate in general.
Tendency to sexual masochistic fantasies;
Immersion in the feeling of grief (finding satisfaction through the loss of one’s own “I”);
Absorption in some idea, etc.
But Horney argues that these elements are not weakness itself, only a tendency towards weakness.
Masochistic aspirations are integrated into a general phenomenon and serve both as a defense against anxiety and as a source of potential or actual satisfaction. The unreality of such satisfaction is justified by Horney through:
The neurotic has a strong desire to designate own uniqueness. Thus, the neurotic is in a situation of an insoluble compromise (a combination of incompatible aspirations). In reality, a neurotic masochist is not capable of sacrificing himself to anything.
- the presence of destructive elements in the neurotic structure. The variety of fears becomes impossible to act out with the help of modern cultural means, therefore, the importance of masochistic fantasies increases.
Conclusion: masochistic impulses are neither a sexual phenomenon nor the result of biologically determined processes, but have their origin in personal conflicts. Their goal is not suffering; the neurotic has as little desire to suffer as any other person. Neurotic suffering is what the neurotic pays for. And the satisfaction that he strives for is not suffering in the proper sense of the word, but a renunciation of his “I”.
Chapter 15. CULTURE AND NEUROSIS.
Our culture puts forward general conditions of life that contribute to the development of neurosis. In K. Horney’s understanding, the factor separating a healthy person from a neurotic is the absence of constraint in overcoming obstacles created by his conflicts, the ability to correctly perceive and overcome them. Neuroses are the price that humanity has to pay for cultural development. Horney identifies cultural factors that give rise to neurosis:
The principle of individual competition. To an individual you have to fight with other representatives of the same group, you have to get the better of them and often “push” them aside. The superiority of one often means failure for the other. Psychological result Such a situation is a vague hostile tension between people.
The prospect of failure means not only economic insecurity, but also loss of prestige and all kinds of emotional experiences of failure.
Impact on self-esteem, level of self-esteem.
All these factors together in psychologically lead to a person feeling isolated. It is precisely this situation that causes in a normal modern person a pronounced need for love and affection as a kind of medicine. In a neurotic person, this situation provides ample ground for the development of neuroses.
Horney identified the main cultural contradictory tendencies that, solely in quantitative terms, create the threat of neurosis:
1) the contradiction between competition and success, on the one hand, and brotherly love and humanity, on the other;
2) the contradiction between the stimulation of our needs and the actual obstacles to their satisfaction;
3) the contradiction between the asserted freedom of man and all his actual restrictions.
Conclusion: a person who has experienced culturally determined difficulties in an aggravated form, refracting them mainly through the sphere of childhood experiences, can become neurotic, and as a result, was unable to resolve them or resolved them at the cost of great damage to his personality.
Horney K. Neurotic personality of our time; Self-analysis: Trans. from English / General ed. G.V. Burmenskaya. – M.: Publishing group “Progress” - “Univers”, 1993. – 480 p.
