Discussion by Edward R. Clemmens

This is an important paper hiding behind a modest title. Reassurance serves as an entry into a discussion of the development of psychoanalysis during our lifetime. Alec Martin's paper as an introduction lends itself well to this purpose.

I enjoyed reading Martin's paper again and feeling myself transported back into his presence and the warmth of his consulting room on Gramercy Park by the magic of his words, and I am reliving my fondness for my analyst. I concur with much that Ingram perceives as the difference between then and now, the cultural changes and attitudes that have taken place. I do have some trouble, nonetheless, recalling Martin as an exponent of superannuated authority. Among the leaders of our Institute 50 years ago, he may well have been the most flexible and liberal one, to use the honorific adjective. Yet he did have a foible for categorizing, a habit of some intellectuals then and even now, that I never came to share.

And so it is refreshing to accompanying Ingram on his excursion into lifting some of those arbitrary boundaries and stating outright that they are unnecessary. It is a pleasure to hear him confirm what the more adventurous and least doctrinaire practitioners among us have known and done all along.

I could go on rhapsodizing, but I want to limit the rest of my comments by focusing upon one point that is the very premise of Karen Horney's theoretical structure, the existence of a self, not just the real self, but all the pathological variants that she uses in her formulations. She did not remain alone in her use of these concepts, since the various schools of self-psychology