To understand Horney, is to recognise
that Horney believed we have two
selves: the real self, a self that is
possible to actualise or realise; and an
idealised self, an impossible self, one
that can never be realisable (Paris,
2002c: n. p.). We need to complicate
this picture by adding that we also
have an empirical existing self as of
this moment.
Neurotic people live with an image of an impossible self shadowed by the actual self
which is despised because it falls far short of the possibilities of the ideal. Hence,
neurotics are always divided people, divided within them-selves. Their inner conflict
centres on their inability to wish for anything wholeheartedly, says Horney. Their wishes
are scattered and go off in different directions because they have no inner sense of selfcoherence.
The tragedy of this situation is that an in-progress neurotic structure is erected to deal
with this sense of personal disunity. This created structure soon proves to be inadequate
which leads to the building of another structure and so on. At the end of the process, the
palliative structures become as problematic as the initial conflict