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This collection of papers presented at the 1960 annual meeting of the Academy of Psychoanalysis gives us an opportunity to learn how psychoanalysis affects and is affected by other disciplines, and to learn about other areas needing investigation.
Many of the contributing authors are steeped in the Freudian tradition and show little evidence of awareness of the holistic theories.
The four sections of the book are: “Psychoanalysis and the Social Order,” “Psychoanalysis and Transactional Dynamics,” “Communication and Therapy,” and “Psychoanalytic Training.”
“The Intellectual Antecedents of Liberal Psychoanalysis” by Dr. Milton Mazer is well written, erudite, and documented with references from historians, philosophers, and psychoanalysts. Mazer says psychoanalysis was born in the liberal tradition. He parallels the historical struggle for freedom and harmony with the essential goal of psychoanalysis. The bulk of the paper is concerned with some unproved psychoanalytic concepts that are accepted by many psychoanalysts. The accepted concepts, he says, are really wishful thinking in the liberal tradition. The first concept that is “taken for granted” is called “The Formula for Happiness.” Statements of Karen Horney are presented to illustrate her acceptance of the idea that psychoanalysis is a formula for happiness. The statements that Mazer attributes to Horney are incorrect and do not appear in her writings.
Mazer states that many analysts assume that psychoanalysis has the only answer to the problem of human happiness, and thus take on the role which in other ages was reserved for God. Horney does say: “Analysis reinforces the desire for happiness. By removing the patient's anxieties, analysis frees energies and wishes for something more positive in life than mere riskless safety.” It is well recognized that human growth can take place in an atmosphere of freedom—externally (environment) and internally (inner conflict). In this atmosphere of freedom it becomes possible fo