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Know thyself? If I knew myself I’d run away.
—Johannn Wolfgang von Goethe
Repression proceeds from the . . . self-respect of the ego.
—Sigmund Freud
If you want the doctor’s help you must reveal the wound.
—Boethius
We cannot achieve self-respect if we are afraid of self-knowledge.
—Morris Raphael Cohen
A NEW YORKER CARTOON showed a woman on the analytic couch, drawing a revolver from her purse, telling her startled analyst, “You’ve done me a world of good, Doctor, but you know too much” (Richter, 1946). The implied hazards of self-revelation are obvious; the patient moves to abolish or avenge her injured self-feeling by ending the life and consciousness of the knowing other. The cartoon touches on a dilemma that dogs analytic work as it obtains revelations of matters usually hidden from others, or hidden from oneself (repressed). The procedure devised to alleviate emotional wounds and their sequelae may revive pain through its effect on self-esteem.
Some twelve years ago I presented a paper on self-feeling, and the opening words I have just written are about the same now as then. This time I use the term self-esteem1 to define my subject. Self-esteem is a set