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The author presents an idea in this volume that individuals with “milder” neuroses could analyze themselves, although they may have had no previous analysis and are not necessarily being guided by anything except following such a volume as this (there is no bibliography). The basis for such a belief is given in occasional instances of fragmentary self-analysis seen in individuals, as well as the fact that patients under formal analysis at times do make self-analytic progress during vacations, treatment intervals, and the like.
It is unfortunate that it is only an idea and not a scientific contribution. It would seem more unfortunate if people who read the book do not see that it is only an idea. Who will they turn to if the method fails ? Instructions are not given.
Dr. Horney could have converted the idea into a scientific contribution, perhaps, by recommending to ten or twenty individuals that they try self-analysis and report to her at appropriate intervals on their progress. Subsequently she could have reported the results. As it is she gives the public a hypodermic shot in the dark. This method, of course, is not in the best scientific tradition which experiments first in minutia. One, however, cannot gainsay Dr. Horney's prerogative to sow the wind. The psychological material in his work is given in her previous works or in the standard analytic texts and hence requires no review here.