Very interesting book. Below is a very condensed summary. I hope it makes sense - please pardon typos.
I think the middle chapters are most interesting, namely her discussion of the idealized image and externalization.
Humans make decisions - this is a burden and a prerogative. Decisions presuppose the willingness and capacity to assume responsibility for them. But because of apathy or conformity, most people just do whatever is to their immediate advantage. To make good decisions we must experience conflict, but people don’t like that feeling. There are a lot of problems with not addressing them head on.
“The more we face our own conflicts and seek our own solutions, the more inner freedom and strength we will gain. Only when we are willing to bear the brunt can we approximate the ideal of being the captain of our ship. A spurious tranquility rooted in our inner dullness is anything but enviable. It is bound to make us weak and any prey to any kind of influence.”
Her argument is that “the conflict born of incompatible attitudes constitutes the core of neurosis and therefore deserves to be called basic.” Core is not just a figurate word - it is not just significant but it is at the dynamic center from which neuroses emanate.
Three personalities studied: Moving toward people, moving against people, moving away from people
Moving Toward People
Everyone wants to feel liked, to belong, to be helped, and so on. The urge to satisfy his need is so compelling that everything one does is oriented toward its fulfillment. In the process these people develop certain qualities and attitudes that mold his/her character (sensitive to needs of others) This person would say: “you must love me, protect me, forgive me, not desert me, because I am so weak and helpless.”
Moving Against People
To him life is a struggle of all against all and the devil take the hindmost. This one desires to make others believe he is a good fellow, but as long as there is no question that he himself is in command. There are neurotic needs for affection and approval, but at the service of aggressive goals. When these people wonder why success has failed to make them feel any less insecure, they only show their psychological ignorance, but the fact that they do so indicates the extent to which success and prestige are commonly regarded as yardsticks. (what is desirable to the first archetype is abhorrent to this one)
Moving Away from People
A desire for meaningful detachment is not neurotic; only when there is an intolerable strain in associating with people and solitude becomes primarily a means of avoiding it is the wish to be alone an indication of neurotic detachment. It is crucial to put emotional distance between themselves and others - they are determined to not be emotionally involved with others in any way (love, fight, competition, etc). This person never wants to be attached so much so that it/s/he becomes indispensable.
Horney then discusses the idealized image. Everyone has an idealized image of themselves (generally we are certain of them) - these images don’t need to be confirmed, but when these false images are questioned by others, the one whose idealized image is attacked will get sensitive. The neurotic is never aware of his/her self-idealization. What a person regards as his faults and shortcomings depends on what he accepts or rejects in himself.
She then discusses externalization. This is the tendency to experience internal processes as if they occurred outside oneself and to hold these external factors responsible for one’s difficulties. Externalization, she argues, makes for a dependence on others: we look to others to remove unsolved inner conflicts. The externalization of self-contempt, for example, may take the form either of despising others or of feeling that it is others who look down upon oneself. With the self removed (because we have externalized our conflicts) it is only natural that the inner conflicts too should be removed from awareness.
The discrepancy between a neurotic’s actual behavior and his idealized picture of himself can be so blatant that one wonders how he himself can help seeing it. The degree to which we blot things out depends on how great our interest is in doing so. How great is our aversion to recognizing these inner conflicts?
There are many results to not solving our inner conflicts: fears, impoverishment of personality, and hopelessness. Ultimately, if we don't question why we act the way we do, why are we afraid of other people finding out, what are our goals in interpersonal contact, then we will be doomed to be unfulfilled and unhappy. So thinking deeply about our inner conflicts is extremely important.