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This special section of the Journal, celebrating Horney's 125th birthday, is evidence, if we need evidence, that people make theories of their own. They add, emphasize, subtract and make conscious and unconscious choices about what works for them. Each of us holds within us what is useful to us, modifies it and moves on from there. Writing and reading and treating are in dynamic interaction. We receive and offer as we read and write and as we work in our offices. In this section, we have seven offerings; actually many times seven, since each paper offers many things within it. The reader and the writer change each other. If you will, we enter into a relational space as we encounter these offerings. Much of this process occurs on an unconscious level. We know this because during a relaxed, unfocussed moment something we had not taken much note of suddenly comes into consciousness and we experience an “aha” moment. So I share here some of my responses and offerings to what has been offered.
Jack Danielian has given us more than an outline for teaching Horneyan metapsychology; he has sparked an important, ambitious project: updating Horney theory. Central to this updating, Dr. Danielian shifts the dynamics of shame and humiliation to the center of the Horneyan map along with dissociation. (The latter I equate with an expansion and elaboration of Horney's concept of fragmentation.) Horney (1950) discussed these dynamics in Neurosis and Human Growth, and in doing so she anticipated much of the future work of others. Though she mentioned shame and humiliation in a key passage of that last book, she gave much greater prominence to self-hate, pride and the search for glory.