Man Against Himself

Menninger writes in the preface: 'This book is an attempt to synthesize and to carry forward...the work begun by Ferenczi, Groddeck, Jelliffe, White, Alexander, Simmel, and others.....' 'We have come to see that just as the child must learn to love wisely, so he must learn to hate expeditiously, to turn destructive tendencies away from himself toward enemies that actually threaten him rather than toward the friendly and the defenseless, the more usual victims of destructive energy.' Ironically, 'Man Against Himself' was published in the same year as Chamberlain's pact for 'peace in our time.' How prophetic his words, 'If such is our nature, it were better that we knew it and knew it in all its protean manifestations.' Menninger develops his analysis of our destructive tendencies in six chapters: Destruction, Suicide, Chronic Suicide, Focal Suicide, Organic Suicide, and Reconstruction. 485 pages.