Journal of a Psychoanalysis Book

This intimate account of a successful analysis illustrates the innovative approach of the analyst, Paul Diel. The anonymous author of the journal was a forty-year-old man beset by anxiety and obsessed with his failures, resentments, fantasies, and disappointments. He was drawn to Diel's method of psychotherapy because of its focus on distorted motivations as the root of emotional disturbance.

Diel saw neurosis as arising from the individual's transformation of every feeling into morbid resentment, imaginary humiliations and victories, feelings of superiority and inferiority, shame at others' opinions, excessive self-justification and self-blame, emotional complaints, and vindictive criticism. Diel's patient unravels the tangle of these negative states in his diary as he recounts his life, faces his inner conflicts, and reflects on his therapy sessions. Through the process of honest and courageous self-examination, he succeeds in discovering the guiding principles that lead him to a more balanced life and happier relationships. Paul Diel's Introduction and Epilogue shed further light on this therapeutic process.

Publishers Weekly

For this Austrian-born French psychologist, warped motivations shaped by an individual's striving for status, money and power are at the heart of neurosis. Mentally unhealthy people, according to Diel (1893-1972), thinly conceal a tangle of resentments that surface in grudges, self-pity, triumphant stances, obsessions, daydreams, excessive hates. The road to cure lies in seeing through society's false values and understanding the source of one's low self-esteem. The diary reproduced here was kept by a 40-year-old patient of Diel. This man came to see his conflicts with co-workers, failure in business and sexual adventures as the result of his feelings of worthlessness. Diel's commentary illuminates the journal entries. A psychologist who insisted that adjusting to a sick society does not make one well, Diel is a relevant thinker for our time. (December)