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Rollo may, in his most recent book, Man's Search for Himself, proposes “to discover ways in which we can stand against the insecurity of our time, to find a center of strength within ourselves, and as far as we can, to point the way toward achieving values and goals which can be depended upon in a day when very little is secure.” I am sure that from his experience as a therapist and as a result of his inquiries into literature, philosophy and ethics he has evolved a personal philosophy satisfying to himself. I, too, found his exposition quite satisfying, but so far as an original contribution to any of these fields, or to psychoanalysis, is concerned I searched in vain. For the general reader, Man's Search for Himself might well provide the stimulus for further investigation into the nature of emotional problems, the economic and social perplexities of our day, ethical values, the place of art and literature in our lives, and other phases of man's inner and outer experiences. The analyst will find familiar concepts agreeably presented and additional evidence, if any is required, of the brightness of spirit and the aliveness of the author. But for new ways toward self-realization, the analyst had best look elsewhere.
Dr. May calls the first section of his work “Our Predicament.” He describes modern man's hollowness, loneliness and anxiety as the characteristics of the malady of the Western world. What he has to say about the first two has been far more dynamically stated by Horney under the more comprehensive term, alienation. As to anxiety, this symptom is treated rather sketchily. In a clinical example he indicates his adherence to the concept of the repetition compulsion in the etiology of neurotic anxiety—anxiety of the moment is the result of a conflict of the past, unresolved and repressed. A major fault in this part of the book, as well as throughout the text, is Dr. May's rapid shifts from the interpersonal plane to the intrapsychic without sufficient demarcat