If there is any science man really needs it is the one I teach, of how to occupy properly that place in creation that is assigned to man, and how to learn from it what one must be in order to be a man. – Immanuel Kant When we are young, we are puzzled by … Read more

This chapter is an attempt by Becker, who is not a psychologist, to distill what we have learned about mental illnesses in a simple and general way. So far, we have learned about the neurotic, who has failed to surround his anality with convincing illusion, he could not stand his own creatureliness. Adler taught us … Read more

Otto Rank’s insight into neuroticism is a key argument in Becker’s book. According to Rank, the neurotic is close to the truth, spiritually. Psychoanalysis tries to get people to see beyond the illusions of their senses, but with the neurotic, it is a different kind of problem. Neuroticism While the neurotic refuses to acknowledge the … Read more

What we learn from history is that man’s awareness of his animal nature has been absorbed by culture. The stories that culture has created has protected man from coming to terms with his nature, but this also depends on the epoch he lives in. In Christianity, man was given a clear story, be good and … Read more

Within man, there is a kind of innate slavishness, a need to worship something bigger than themselves. Many people later question how they could have been fooled by the magnetism or aura of someone great. How they could lose control of their critical faculties so easily? Freud called this phenomenon “transference” – it was when … Read more

Freud was an atheist but when it came to the nature of man, he was as religious as the theologian Kierkegaard. He thought that man’s creatureliness was his fundamental nature. Jung recalled an encounter with Freud where the latter told him, “My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the … Read more

Religion and psychoanalysis are related. Kierkegaard can be considered a psychologist, even though he was a theologian and a philosopher. The foundation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is the Fall in the story of Adam and Eve. This myth contains the basic insight of psychology, that man is a union of opposites – self-consciousness and the physical … Read more

If heroism requires courage, why are so few people truly courageous? Even Carlyle, who terrified people, depended on his father for validation. Becker argues that one reason that people lack courage is because they lack authority, and they lack authority because they did not choose to be born –  they have been granted everything: a … Read more

Philosophers have tried to figure out the core nature of man, but perhaps this eluded them because man does not have only one core nature. As Erich Fromm put it, the essence of man is really his paradoxical nature. One the one hand, he is a symbolic self, he can create ingenious things and speculate … Read more