Tyranny of the “Shoulds”

I never thought two chapters of a book could turn my world upside down. The names

where compelling: The Search For Glory and The Tyranny of the Shoulds. My friend copied

them for all of us to read at our Bible study. His school used Neurosis and Human Growth by

Karen Horney to explain psychological development, drives and motivations in their spiritual

formation program. Reading those two chapters was painful and freeing. My pursuit of

perfection was exposed as my main defensive strategy, what I thought would keep me safe.

Freeing as I saw how this strategy kept me out of real relationship and provided a way through to

something better. I was so moved that it became a catalyst for changing my career path. I was

working as an engineer but did not find it very interesting. So, with the help of the book, I made

the change to become a therapist and it was the best choice I have made. Neurosis and Human

Growth has been the most insightful book in psychology that I have ever read.

The first major idea I would like to mention was the learning about the idea of “real alive

self” and “our false self”. To explain this further, when we as individuals are acting from our

“real alive self” we connect well with others, we do the things we like, and we’re able to see

ourselves and each other in this a balanced and fair way with compassion. When we present a

“false self” it is the image that we present to the world, that which we hope to live up to. In my

most recent post, I shared that my trauma response was to make a deal to God that I would be

perfect, and in exchange, he would protect me. This is an example of presenting a false self-

image to society. I portrayed my false self as this perfect individual and often felt that if I did not

live up to this perfect version of myself then my consequences were life or death.

In the chapter “The Tyranny of the Shoulds,” Horney explained that we use the system of

“should” in an attempt to live up to the impossible idealized self-image. This in turn separates us

more and more from our real alive selves. Reading this I had this painful self-awareness that

Horney was talking about me! It felt like she was describing me but also at the same time it was

liberating to recognize that I was living partially from a false self and that I could change that. I

had already done therapy for a while to deal with my childhood trauma, but reading this book

showed everything in stark relief in a really brilliant and eloquent way. It also gave me a path

forward in how to align myself more and more with my real self, to let myself grow and develop;

this allowed me to give up on strategies for managing my trauma and anxiety that didn’t lead to a

life I wanted.

Another important idea is Karen Horney’s understanding of our “innate self-actualizing

drive.” This drive focuses on wholeness, healing, and being who we really are. This self-

actualizing drive is a powerful force that sometimes gets corrupted into “neuroses“ in an effort to

protect us or or help us manage anxiety when it is not safe for our real self to be seen.

Understanding this logic of the self-actualizing drive prompted a change in my thinking,

especially with religion. I grew up Christian and my understanding of theology got twisted up by

my sexual abuse. This made ideas of original sin and what we are capable of as people really

toxic.

Internally I was able to focus less on what’s negative, and started to see my potential to

grow, and how to remove the barriers to that growth. I incorporate this way of understanding

people in my practice as a therapist to look at what is going well, how we do more of what’s

going well and be aware of defenses as attempts at self preservation that are not working for us. I

practice bringing people to healing by making them aware of their “real alive self” and “false

self” in ways that generate less resistance to change. I advocate for everyone to adapt and learn

to show up with their real alive self, because showing up with our real selves allows us to live in

the more beautiful world that we know is possible.