2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
The central feature of neurosis is a distortion of the person's immediate self. The goal of treating a neurosis is to return a person to himself, to help him regain his immediacy and find the center of gravity in himself.
Karen Horney introduces three concepts in her works: the true self, the present self and the ideal self.
The true self is a set of objective, essential personality traits that determine its originality (temperament, abilities, talents, inclinations). These are the inclinations of a personality, which are realizable under good conditions of development.
The ideal self is personality traits that are a product of a person's imagination. It includes false, false traits that are not feasible.
The Cash I is our I, which is now. He has some of the original traits, there are neurotic traits.
Neurosis is the alienation of a person from his true self, towards the ideal I.
As a result, a person develops a hatred for himself, for his I, which does not correspond to the ideal.
How it happens: when a person shifts the "center of gravity" of his personality to the ideal I, he not only exalts himself, but also begins to incorrectly see his present I (that is, such as he is now).
The ideal I becomes not only what one strives for, what one pursues, it becomes a measure of what is now. And what is now, against the background of godlike perfection, appears in a nondescript light and begins to be despised. Worse, the personality that is now begins to interfere in the pursuit of the ideal I. Therefore, a person is doomed to hate this personality, i.e. yourself.
Imagine: there are two people in front of us. One is a unique, ideal being, and the second is a stranger, an outsider (present I), who always climbs and interferes. And no matter how much a person tries to escape from his present self, it is always with him. He may be successful, things may not go badly, or he may fantasize about fabulous accomplishments, but he will nevertheless always feel inadequate and insecure. He is constantly haunted by the feeling that he is a deceiver, an impostor, a fake, which he cannot explain. Because his cash I am always with him.
The real I is experienced as an insulting mistake, something alien, in which the ideal I is contained. And it turns to this mistake with hatred and contempt. But in reality, the present self has become a victim of the ideal self.
Therefore, a striking characteristic of the neurotic is war with himself. This is the first conflict of a neurotic when his pride (in the form of an ideal I) is at war with the shortcomings of the present I.
The second conflict, which Karen Horney calls the central conflict of the neurotic, occurs between pride (the ideal self) and the person's true self.
Here the struggle is between healthy and neurotic forces. Here our true self is fighting for its life. Therefore, there are two types of hatred in a neurotic: hatred for the present self with its shortcomings is hatred for one's true self.
We hate ourselves not because we are worthless, but because we are drawn to get out of our skin, to jump over our heads. Hate comes from the discrepancy between who I could be and who I am. And this is not just a split, it is a brutal and murderous war.
All this leads the neurotic to alienation from himself. The neurotic has no feelings for himself. Therefore, an important step on the path to recovery will be the neurotic's awareness that he is breaking himself. And before this leads to constructive action, the neurotic must feel his suffering and feel sorry for himself.
The neurotic is not always aware that he is feeling self-loathing. And especially the scale of the harm that he inflicts on himself. However, almost all neurotics are aware of the result of self-loathing: a feeling of guilt and inferiority, a feeling that something is squeezing and tormenting them. But they do not understand that they are doing this to themselves, it is they who rate themselves so low. And instead of suffering from a feeling of oppression, they pride themselves on “lack of selfishness,” “sacrifice,” “loyalty to duty,” which can hide a huge number of sins against themselves.
Based on the work of Karen Horney
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