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Jack Danielian offers the reader steeped in Horney's theory a mostly congenial summation of her metapsychology and a sound approach to the clinical teaching of her concepts. To the reader less familiar with Horney, perhaps what he offers will stimulate interest in exploring her contributions.
Danielian's professional history differs from my own. We both were nurtured in the Horney tradition at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis at a time when the Institute was all-Horney, all-the-time. Danielian subsequently moved to New Hampshire while I remained in New York City. He was the senior analyst in his professional group and integrated Kohutian self-psychology into his Horney background. I fumbled around with different perspectives all of which in New York City had ever-present spokespersons. Later, as the Editor of The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, I was exposed still further to manuscripts of those for whom Horney mattered little, if at all. Furthermore, as a psychiatrist I witnessed the advent of sometimes powerful, sometimes overrated new medications.
Still, despite my experience beyond the boundaries of Horney's applied theory, very often I have turned back to her concepts—and often surprised myself at their vigor. Danielian speaks about Horney's concepts in a manner that he and I both know to be wan and sketchy. After all, he is seeking in a single paper to address both Horney's metapsychology and an approach to teaching her work. A word here, a word there. I know what he is talking about, but I worry that without his bringing the depth of thoughtfulness that I know him capable of, he risks misleading the less-informed reader. What can seem like vacuous sound bites are for both of us chapter headings.