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In her very readable though somewhat ambitious book, the author reviews the whole of Freud's theory of psycho-analysis. While recognizing the fundamental significance of his discovery of the unconscious, transference, psychical determinism, the motivating force of emotional impulses and the technique of free association and interpretation, she dismisses most of his other almost equally far-reaching concepts, such as the Oedipus complex, the super-ego, the libido theory, the death instinct, repetition-compulsion, introjection and unconscious guilt; and she finds a great deal to correct in his ideas about anxiety, identification, masochism, narcissism and many subjects of similar importance. In the place of all this she puts forward some views of her own concerning the principles on which the human mind works and the way in which it should be treated in analysis.
Dr. Horney differs from Freud on three main points. She believes in the first place that neurotic behaviour is ultimately caused, not by instinctual tensions in the individual, but by the pressure of external factors upon him (or by some conflict of will or feeling) which endangers his position; in the second place that such behaviour is a safety-device designed to secure him against danger and not to gratify an impulse; and