Karen Horney

builds up a world of his own— with nature, with his dolls, his books, his dreams.

It is not accidental that a conflict that starts with our relation to others in time affects the whole personality. Human relationships are so crucial that they are bound [[47]]to mold the qualities we develop, the goals we set for ourselves, the values we believe in. All these in turn react upon our relations with others and so are inextricably interwoven. 3

32]]Kierkegaard 3 has pointed out: "Real life is far

that is, every symptom is a more or less direct outgrowth of a conflict. We shall see gradually what unresolved conflicts do to people, how they produce states of anxiety, depression, indecision, inertia, detachment, and so on.

In other instances the inner conflict may be externalized and appear in the person's conscious mind as an incompatibility between himself and his environment. Or, finding that seemingly unfounded fears and inhibitions interfere with his wishes, a person may be aware that the crosscurrents within himself issue from deeper sources.

The more knowledge we gain of a person, the better able we are to recognize the conflicting elements that account for the symptoms, inconsistencies, and surface conflicts—and, we must add, the more confusing becomes the picture, through the number and variety of contradictions

As I see it, the source of the conflict revolves around the neurotic's loss of capacity to wish for anything wholeheartedly because his very wishes are divided, that is, go in opposite directions.

Freud, the basic conflict is universal and in principle cannot be resolved

a conflict between constructive and destructive forces in human beings. Freud himself was less interested in bringing this concept to bear on conflicts than he was in the way the two forces are alloyed. He saw the possibility, for instance, of explaining masochistic and sadistic drives as a fusion between sexual and destructive instincts.

Jung also placed considerable emphasis on the opposing tendencies in human beings. Indeed he was so impressed with the contradictions at work in the individual that he took it to be a general law that the presence of any element would of necessity indicate the presence also of its opposite. An outward femininity implied an inward masculinity; a surface extraversion, a concealed introversion; an outward preponderance of thinking and