Neurosis and Human Growth

The Struggle toward Self-Realization

By: Karen Horney MD

Narrated by: Heather Henderson

One of the most original psychoanalysts after Freud, Karen Horney pioneered such now-familiar concepts as alienation, self-realization, and the idealized image, and she brought to psychoanalysis a new understanding of the importance of culture and environment.

Karen Horney was born in Hamburg in 1885 and studied at the University of Berlin, receiving her medical degree in 1913. From 1914 to 1918 she studied psychiatry at Berlin-Lankwitz, Germany, and from 1918 to 1932 taught at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. She participated in many international congresses, among them the historic discussion of lay analysis chaired by Sigmund Freud.

Dr. Horney came to the United States in 1932 and for two years was associate director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. In 1934 she came to New York and was a member of the teaching staff of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute until 1941, when she became one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the American Institute for Psychoanalysis.

In Neurosis and Human Growth, Dr. Horney discusses the neurotic process as a special form of human development: the antithesis of healthy growth. She unfolds the different stages of this situation, describing neurotic claims, the tyranny of inner dictates, and the neurotic’s solutions for relieving the tensions of conflict in such emotional attitudes as domination, self-effacement, dependency, or resignation. Throughout, she outlines with penetrating insight the forces that work for and against the person’s realization of his or her potentialities.

©1950 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“ Neurosis and Human Growth is in my opinion the most important psychoanalytic contribution to our understanding of the human organism…since the basic work of Sigmund Freud.” (Isidore Portnoy, MD)

The way this is presented is refreshing. I never felt attacked or made felt to feel a certain way. Easily digestible.

I came across this unintentionally and bought it on a whim. I'm glad I did. Not only has this helped me identify some of the things I have struggled with most of my life. It has helped me try and work on them in a productive way. Some of the topics hit a little to close and made me uncomfortable. Not in a bad way mind you, but presentes in a way that wasn't to harsh and easily digestible. I am definitely going to be diving in this more than once. Highly recommend!

Karen at her best

Painfully insightful. I appreciated the perspective of the author. the Reader more than excellent. Thank you

Very insightful; a must read to understanding self

This book opened my mind to new ways of facing personal deficits and shortcomings. It offers clear thinking on the self, and seems to me, a most important text.

Common sense advice for life

Don't let the title of this book fool you. This is not a psycho-babble guide to finding the real you. The author is a very intelligent woman who trained as a psycho-analyst and worked for years helping people with problems they found overwhelming. Her experience provides the listener with a common sense approach to deal with the types of problems we all encounter simply because life is not perfect. She helped me understand that my demands on myself for personal perfection lead to self-hate. She provided a guide for accepting my real self beginning with honesty and compassion. I have always avoided authors who write self-help manuals with the secret for happiness. This author doesn't claim she can cure all of your problems. What she can do is help me and others to better deal with problems that have made them feel unhappy and out of place all of their lives. The narrator of the book conveys the calm helpful message of the author very well. This is a very good book that I highly recommend.

the reactionary psyche

I liked the concept of *pride system*, the emphasis on interpersonal reaction as vulnerable mind is waylaid by many and varied tricky tangents of self-ishness, the neurotic reaction or retreat.