Summary
In this paper I have evaluated some of the writings of Horney, Martin and Ivimey as they had reference to the subject of the use of material regarding the past in theory formation and in therapy. To amplify the basis for my main thesis I included material from Krishnamurti and Watts on the meaning of being aware. My detailed formulations of the symbolizing process as metaphorically a symbolic spiral were included. This was done to show how, starting with pure fact in ourselves and our environment, through the symbolizing process we formulate symbols of many varieties. It was emphasized throughout that the only present ones. They may be wrought into symbols having a location in time, in the past, present or future, and in place, here and any place except here. The only place and time we can ever be is here and now. Horney's emphasis on the actual situation was focusing on the only thing we can be aware of, the immediate present, and all that is actually going on in it. Accordingly, the past cannot be avoided or over-emphasized, nor can one make a leap to the past to unearth more quickly the origins of later neurotic developments. The past cannot be avoided or over-emphasized, nor the present, because at any moment totally we are the aftereffects of our past, totally we are our memory, totally we are our history. And since the whole patient is the means as ends and ends as means of therapy, I speak of life history as therapy, not in therapy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Kelman, H.: The Use of the Analytic Couch, Am. J. Psychoan.: XIII, 1953, 38.
Martin, A. R.: Nostalgia, Am. J. Psychoan., XIV, 1954, 93.
Angyal, A.: Foundations for a Science of Personality, The Commonwealth Fund, New York, 1941, Chapt. VIII.
Whyte, L. L.: The Next Development in Man, A Mentor Book, New American Library, 1950, 17–18.
cf. 49 above, Whyte, L. L.: The Next Development in Man, A Mentor Book, New American Library, 1950, 254.
Krishnamurti, J.: The First and Last Freedom, Harper & Bros., New York, 98.
cf. 52 above, 9–10.
Kelman, H.: Dreaming and Sleeping. Lecture V, The Meaning of Dreams, a course given at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, Fall, 1951, unpublished.
Cassirer, E.: An Essay on Man, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1953, An Anchor Book, 44.
Kelman, H.: The Process of Symbolization, Am. J. Psychoan., IX, 1949, 87.
Lelman, H.: Lecture II, The Symbolizing Process; Lecture III, The Artistic, the Creative, the Curative in Dreams; Lecture IV, Self and Object Presentation in Dreams; The Meaning of Dreams, a course given at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, Fall, 1951, unpublished.
Northrop, F. S. C.: The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1948, 82.
cf. 62 above,, 39.
cf. 62 above,, 36.
cf. 62 above,, 40.
Keller, H.: Dream Experiences. In the World of Dreams, Ed. by Ralph L. Woods, Random House, New York, 1947, 930.
Langer, S.: Philosophy in a New Key. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1942, Chapt. IV.
Wiener, N.: The Human Use of Human Beings, Cybernetics and Society, Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1954, An Anchor Book, 12.
cf. 68 above,, 11, 34.
cf. 68 above,, 35.
Schrödinger, E.: What is Life? Cambridge University Press. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1946, 71.
Huxley, J.: Evolution in Action, Harper & Bros., New York, 1953, Chapt. 6.
Rapaport, A.: Operational Philosophy. Harper & Bros., New York, 1954, 192.
cf. 68 above,, 30.
Sullivan, H. S.: The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1953, 275.
Burrow, T.: The Neurosis of Man. Philosophical Library, New York, 1953, Part I, Chapt. II and V.
Additional information
Part I appeared in Volume XV, No. 2. Part II in Volume XVI, No. I. Part III completes article.
Harold Kelman, M.D., Harvard, 1931, M.Dd.Sc., Columbia, 1938, is a diplomate of the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Dean of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, and a lecturer there and at the New School for Social Research. This paper was read in part before the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis at the New York Academy of Medicine on January 25, 1956.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kelman, H. Life history as therapy. Am J Psychoanal 16, 145–166 (1956). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01873273
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01873273