Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle toward Self-Realization

Don't let the title of this book fool you. This is not a psycho-babble guide to finding the real you. The author is a very intelligent woman who trained as a psycho-analyst and worked for years helping people with problems they found overwhelming. Her experience provides the listener with a common sense approach to deal with the types of problems we all encounter simply because life is not perfect. She helped me understand that my demands on myself for personal perfection lead to self-hate. She provided a guide for accepting my real self beginning with honesty and compassion. I have always avoided authors who write self-help manuals with the secret for happiness. This author doesn't claim she can cure all of your problems. What she can do is help me and others to better deal with problems that have made them feel unhappy and out of place all of their lives. The narrator of the book conveys the calm helpful message of the author very well. This is a very good book that I highly recommend.

Great book! I was impressed by how well the author knew me! I also really enjoyed the ongoing, and at times direct, comparative analysis made with philosophies of other psychoanalysts, and the lterary references made to help illustrate certain points. The organization of the writing is inspired, and every chapter builds further on previous reading.

The depth of thought and ideas are mind expanding in this book. After listening to it two times I got the book because I needed to slow down and think through the ideas more slowly. As someone who does therapy I find the ideas she protrays very helpful. This is a book that charts a very different course then Freudian or more contemperary psychologist from the behavioral/cognitive perspective. Its contents are more based on the dynamic interplay between what you really are and what you or others wish you were in your mind. It will give some framework but not help you know how to help others other then being able to more fully understand and chart where they are coming from.

Great formulation of the neurotic phenotypes in down to earth language. Not heavy into psychobabble. I must for anyone within the psychoanalytic / psychodynamic field.

It is a book which should not be listened to whilst doing other things that need your attention, like driving!. People in this field would have appreciated no forgetting those with an interest in psychology. Overall it is a good book with in-depth analysis that should be consumed as if reading a book.