Correlation of neurotic conflict strategies (K. Horney), with attachment styles (Bowlby)

Abstract

The whole complexity of the neurotic conflict lies in the fact that it does not lie on the surface, and is an unconscious part of the psyche. The conflicting tendencies that operate in it represent deeply repressed drives. Neurotic conflict has its origins in early childhood, when the child begins to look for ways to live safely. Basic anxiety is formed, which determines the feeling of helplessness in the face of potentially extreme situations for the psyche. The child unconsciously begins to form adaptive strategies and neurotic tendencies. Children's experience is a sensitive ground for the formation of a stable pattern of behavior in a child. The psyche translates the non-processed traumatic situation into the unconscious, activating neurotic psychological defenses that level out the traumatic experience. Based on the fact that neurosis is understood as the result of a conflict between the unconscious and consciousness, the main task of psychotherapy within the framework of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious, to become aware of the unconscious. Freud compares the situation of the need for awareness of one's own unconscious and the process of psychoanalysis itself with such a situation: a negligent student during a lecture in every possible way interferes with the teacher, grimaces, throws inappropriate remarks, distracts everyone from the case. The teacher throws the student out of the door, but he constantly looks into the audience, attracts attention to himself in all possible ways and interferes with productive work. In the same way, we push our unconscious "out the door", and it continues to remind us of itself in every possible way, to disturb and interfere with normal activities.