You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Dr. Douglas Ingram has done all of us interested in psychoanalytic technique and in Karen Horney a great service by making these lectures available to us. Those who long for a reprise of Horney's style and approach—her essence; those who wish an introduction to her thinking; and those who wish an introduction to psychoanalytic technique generally will all find themselves richly rewarded by this small gem of a book.
The book consists of the edited transcripts, from tape recordings, of lectures Horney gave in her course on psychoanalytic technique at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, the last course she taught before her death. They are supplemented with footnotes by Dr. Ingram and an afterward by Dr. Edward R. Clemmens. The lectures deal with the following subjects: “The Quality of the Analyst's Attention”; “Free Associations and the Use of the Couch”; “Specific Psychoanalytic Means of Understanding the Patient”; “Difficulties and Defenses”; and “Intellectual Process or Emotional Experience”.
Like the character in David Mamet's play, Glengary/Glenross, who asks, “Are we talking or are we speaking?”, Horney challenges us to try to have each analytic session be a lived experience. She places her priorities on the quality of the analyst's attention; the productivity and spirit of the patient's associations; the patient's attitude towards his difficulties and toward the analysis itself; and the importance of emotional experience over intellectual process in the analysis.
Is the patient really talking of his inner world or is he merely speaking? Is the analyst wholehearted, productive, creative in her listening to her patient? How does one encourage free associating without intimidating the patient who is overly rigid and self-controlled? Is there a useful distinction between a person's difficulties and the defenses he uses to protect the inner structure? Horney manages to explore these basic issues, and a number of others, in quite some depth despite the brevity of