My Encounter with Karen Horney’s Book, “Neurosis and Human Growth”

I think it was during my first or second year of university. I was suffering from social anxiety and the accompanying anxiety, tension, depression, inferiority complex, and loneliness, so I was devouring psychology and psychiatry books at libraries and bookstores.
One day, in a large bookstore, I found Karen Horney’s “Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization” (Academia Publishing) and started reading it.
This is a late work by the German psychoanalyst Karen Horney (1885-1952), a masterpiece that summarizes her life’s research and reflections.
After reading it two or three times in the bookstore, I realized it was an amazing book, and I remember rushing out to buy it before it sold out.
This book became like a bible of psychology for me.

I believe this is by far the number one book on psychology and psychiatry written in human history.
If I were to rate this book on a scale of 100, I would give it 90 or 100 points. Compared to “The Struggle for Self-Actualization: Neurosis and Human Growth,” all other books would score below 50 points.
I was overwhelmed by the meticulousness of the logic and the profound insights.
Horney elucidated the system of various mental illnesses and mental health disorders, revealing the concept of basic anxiety and other structures.
Recently, the term “neurosis” has fallen out of use, and many conditions have been classified into individual categories such as “bipolar disorder,” “social anxiety disorder,” “depression,” “social withdrawal,” and “developmental disorders.” However, reading Horney’s book reveals that these all share a common structure.
While Horney deepened his research using psychoanalysis, a method founded by Freud, I believe it has weaknesses in terms of treatment methods.
However, I also believe that the level and effectiveness of other mental illness treatments are similarly limited to psychoanalysis.
In that sense, I believe Morita therapy is the most effective method for people with mental illness or mental health disorders to live their lives.