Karen Horney

• Karen Horney's major works include concepts like Basic Hostility, Basic Anxiety, Compulsive Drives, Intrapsychic Conflicts, and Feminine Psychology
• Horney's early life included feeling neglected by her father, becoming more attached to her mother, battling depression since age 9 due to rejection from her brother, and shifting focus towards education
• In her young adulthood, Horney married Oskar Horney in her third year of college, gave birth to her first child in 1910, and relied on Freudian analysis during difficult times
• During her college years, Horney attended the University of Freiburg in 1906, transferred to the University of Gottingen in 1908, and earned her medical degree from the University of Berlin in 1913
• Marital problems for Horney included her husband's business shutting down in 1923, her brother's death the same year contributing to her depression and suicidal thoughts, leading her to move to the US in 1930
• Horney worked at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin under Karl Abraham, later becoming an associate director at the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis before moving to Brooklyn
• In Brooklyn, Horney associated with Erik Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan, taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and deviated from Freud's work in her feminine psychology theories
• Horney challenged Freud's views in feminine psychology, suggesting that Penis Envy is actually envy of male power, men experience "womb envy," and she desexualized the Oedipus Complex
• Horney's self theory includes the concepts of the Actual Self, Real Self, Despised Real Self, and Ideal Self, emphasizing that the healthy person's goal in life is self-actualization
• In her psychoanalytic social theory, Horney believed early childhood experiences play a significant role in shaping human personality, emphasizing the importance of unconscious motivation and the two guiding principles of safety and satisfaction
• Horney's view of human beings is more optimistic than Freud's, focusing on the role of early childhood experiences in shaping personality and the negotiation of the child's place in the family in terms of the Oedipal conflict
• Basic Evil, Basic Hostility, and Basic Anxiety are key concepts in Horney's theory, with Basic Anxiety being the foundation of neurosis and resulting from the repression of basic hostility
• Basic Anxiety involves feelings of isolation and helplessness in a potentially hostile world, serving as the foundation of neurosis, and leading to protective mechanisms in childhood like securing love and affection, being submissive, attaining power, and withdrawing
• Neurotic needs are irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part of personality and affect behavior
• 10 Neurotic Needs:

  • Affection and approval
  • A powerful partner
  • Restricting one’s life within narrow borders
  • Power
  • Exploiting others
  • Social recognition or prestige
  • Personal admiration
  • Ambition and personal achievement
  • Self-sufficiency and independence
  • Perfection and unassailability
• Neurotic trends are 3 categories of behaviors and attitudes toward oneself and others that express a person’s needs
• Neurotic persons are compelled to act based on one of the neurotic trends:

  • Movement toward others (compliant personality)
  • Movement against others (aggressive personality)
  • Movement away from others (detached personality)
• Basic hostility results from childhood feelings of rejection or neglect by parents or from a defense against basic anxiety
• Basic anxiety results from parental threats or from a defense against basic hostility
• Defenses against anxiety can be categorized into normal defenses and neurotic defenses
• Normal defenses include spontaneous movements:

  • Toward people (friendly, loving personality)
  • Against people (a survivor in a competitive society)
  • Away from people (autonomous, serene personality)
• Neurotic defenses include compulsive movements:

  • Toward people (compliant personality)
  • Against people (aggressive personality)
  • Away from people (detached personality)
• Figure 6.1 illustrates the interaction of basic hostility and basic anxiety with the defenses against anxiety
• NEUROTIC TRENDS

  Affection and approval (mvmt. toward)

  A dominant partner (mvmt. toward)

  Power (mvmt against)

  Exploitation (mvmt. against)

  Prestige (mvmt against)

  Admiration (mvmt. against)

  Achievement or ambition (mvmt against)

  Self-sufficiency (mvmt away)

  Perfection (mvmt away)

  Narrow limits to life (mvmt away)
• THE COMPLIANT PERSONALITY

  (MOVING TOWARD OTHERS)

  Intense need for affection and approval

  Urge to be loved, wanted

  Manipulate others to achieve goals

  Think of self as helpless

  Suppress desires to control, exploit others
• THE AGGRESSIVE PERSONALITY

  (MOVING AGAINST PEOPLE)

  Survival of the fittest

  See self as superior

  Driven to succeed to compensate for feelings of

  insecurity, anxiety
• THE DETACHED PERSONALITY

  (MOVING AWAY FROM OTHERS)

  Strive to become self-sufficient

  Desire for privacy

  Maintain emotional distance
• THE IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE

  Normal people: Built on flexible, realistic assessment of one’s abilities

  Neurotic people: Inflexible, unrealistic self-appraisal

  3 ASPECTS OF THE IDEALIZED IMAGE

  The Neurotic search for glory

  The Neurotic claims

  The Neurotic pride
• The neurotic search for glory is a comprehensive drive toward actualizing the ideal self
• Neurotics come to believe in the reality of their idealized self, incorporating it into all aspects of their lives: goals, self-concept, and relations with others
• THE TYRANNY OF THE SHOULDS

  • Used by neurotics to attain the idealized self
  • Deny true self and behave in terms of what we think we should be doing
  • Striving toward an imaginary picture of perfection, neurotics usually tell themselves “FORGET ABOUT THE DISGRACEFUL CREATURE YOU ACTUALLY ARE; THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD BE”

  Externalization- Reduce conflict caused by discrepancy between ideal and actual self.
• NEUROTIC CLAIMS

  • Believing that something is wrong with the outside world, they proclaim that they are special and therefore entitled to be treated in accordance with their idealized view of themselves.
  • Because these demands are very much in accord with their Idealized self-image, they fail to see that their claims of special privilege are unreasonable.
• NEUOROTIC PRIDE

  • a false pride based not on a realistic view of the true self but on a spurious image of the idealized self.
  • Neurotic pride on the other hand, is based on an idealized image of self and is usually loudly proclaimed in order to protect and support a glorified view of one’s self.
• SELF HATRED

  • Is the tendency for neurotics to hate or despise their real self .

  6 WAYS OF EXPRESSING SELF-HATRED

  • Relentless demands on the self
  • Merciless self-accusation
  • Self-contempt
  • Self- frustration
  • Self Torment
  • Self-destructive actions and impulses.
• Auxiliary defenses in psychology:

  • Externalization: other people become the center of the neurotic's life, leading to inner emptiness
  • Creation of blind spots: inability to see the difference between oneself and the ideal image
  • Compartmentalization: separation between different areas of life like business, family, and church
  • Cynicism: belief that self-interest is the only motivation, leading to behaving in a self-interested way
  • Rationalization: providing false reasons for actions, like saying "I did this to make you happy" when the real motive is to make them like you
  • Excessive self-control: avoiding emotions and vulnerability
  • Arbitrary rightness: making seemingly impulsive decisions to avoid real decision-making, then rationalizing them
  • Elusiveness: constant clouding of issues