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The importance of the environmental influences on the process of psychoanalysis has not been studied thoroughly, though we should consider it an integral part of our practical psychoanalytic work.
In the literature since 1893, very little concerning environmental influences on the actual process of psychoanalysis can be found. The Freudian concepts put too much emphasis on the study of the past rather than of the present; Freud emphasized the influences of the environment leading to neurosis, he omitted a consideration of how during analysis the environment perpetuates or helps to remove neurotic patterns.
A concept emphasizing sociological and cultural factors, like that of Horney, brings us nearer to the question: In what way does the environment affect the analytic procedure? Horney's idea that neurosis is a disturbance in the relation of the individual to the self and a disturbance of inter-human relations, leads to consideration of two basic points of attention in the psychoanalytical process:
The study of the relations to the Self.
The study of actions and reactions of the patient in relation to other human beings.
This latter problem can be fully revealed only if we go far beyond the Freudian concept that the main factors in psychoanalysis are transference and resistance; also farther than more recent ideas that the outcome of the analysis depends on the emotional atmosphere created in the analytical situation. Psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method has to work toward adjustments to the self and the environment; these two are inseparable; neglect of the one or the other one means working in a vacuum and thus neglecting the most important goal, namely, integration which leads to a better ability of proper functioning in real life.
What is environment? According to Webster it is: “the surrounding conditions, influences, or forces which influence or modify. …” Thinking along this linguistic line, we put emphasis on “forces which influence and modify