The Therapeutic Process: Essays and Lectures

Renowned for her contributions as a psychoanalytic theorist, Karen Horney was also a gifted clinician and teacher of analysts. She included chapters on therapy in several of her books, wrote essays on clinical issues throughout her career, and was preparing to write a book on analytic technique at the time of her death. The lectures collected here constitute a version of that book. This volume provides the most complete record to date of Karen Horney's ideas about the therapeutic process. It offers valuable insight into a little-known aspect of her work and fresh understanding of issues that continue to be of concern to clinicians. Well ahead of her time, Karen Horney viewed therapy as a collaborative enterprise in which the open, frank, and supportive therapist grows along with the patient. She discusses countertransference phenomena and the ways in which a therapist's personality can influence the healing process. She offers much wisdom and practical advice based on her own rich experience.