The Self-Idealizing and Self-Alienating Process during Late Adolescence

This paper is basically a continuation of a previous one I wrote in 1961, “The Early Development of the Self and its Role in Neurosis.” I shall now consider certain particular phenomena occurring during later adolescence, and relate these to the neurotic process. My approach here is based on two premises which were noted in the previous paper. The first is that Horney's theory, as a holistic clinical explanatory theory of neurotic development, does not adequately take into account particular developmental or maturational aspects of growth of self, such as are seen during childhood and adolescence. The second is that in spite of the existence of a voluminous literature on the subject of adolescence, many aspects still remain unclear.

Among these aspects is the concept of self-idealization. The majority of work in the field has dealt with this process in terms of the classical libidinal theory, that is, as resulting from the vicissitudes of the sexual instincts and within the framework of the structural theory of the mental apparatus. However, even within this context there has been a shift in emphasis within recent years. This has been well reviewed by Spiegel1 and Shapiro.2 The views of the earlier psychoanalytic writers, such as Anna Freud3 and Bernfeld,4 which attribute the adolescent reactions primarily to defenses against libidinal urges, have been modified by the views of Erikson5 and Jacobson,6 for instance, in which the psychosocial roles and autonomous ego development are stressed. In her early work, Horney also called attention to the development of specific personality attitudes in the adolescent girl in reaction to physiological sexual changes.7 While I do not wish to minimize the importance of the sexual drives during this period, I do feel that a one-sided emphasis upon these will limit our understanding of the total clinical picture. Few attempts have been made to conceptualize these phenomena in terms of total personality structure or in relation to th