Mobilizing Constructive Forces

Compiled and edited from lectures on Psychoanalytic Technique given by the late Karen Horney at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis during the years 1946, 1951 and 1952. Further lectures in this series will appear in subsequent issues of the Journal.

In Compiling and editing Horney's lectures about constructive forces, I also included material on this subject contained in her publications and found helpful the writings of her colleagues.¹ Most of these lectures were given after the publication of her last book, Neurosis and Human Growth, in 1950. Horney was still in the process of further formulating and extending her theories, both in specific articles and lectures. These lectures were presented with the assumption of her students’ previous familiarity with her theories, and as she ruminated and expanded on them, she was summarizing without amplification; these lectures on mobilizing constructive forces were particularly incomplete as presentations of all that was involved. Using her actual lectures as my foundation, I have had to fill in with her previous statements about constructive forces as they appeared in other contexts, as well as the elaborations of her colleagues and students which she actually referred to in these lectures, or which in their amplifications contain the spirit of what Horney was communicating.

Another factor to be pointed out is that in her actual writings, Horney's focus was so much on identifying the neurotic character structure, the complexity of defensive mechanisms and the underlying dynamic conflicts as a therapeutic method for undermining these obstructing forces for growth, that less space was afforded in detailing the healthy forces. In one series of lectures when Horney was asked if she was finally going to talk about therapy, she replied that everything she had said pertained to therapy. The patient must become aware of every single dynamic factor, its connections and interactions, and these must be seen in the context of th