Karen Horney

• Culture


  Plays a leading reason in shaping human personality
• Prevailing attitude


  Of aggressiveness and drive to win or be superior
• Society demand


  For achievement & Success
• Culture


  Especially childhood experiences, plays a leading reason in shaping human personality
• Cultural teachings


  Of love and humility
• Society demand


  For achievement & Success
• Society tells people


  Are free & can accomplish anything with hard work and perseverance
• Every time a goal has been reached, new ones are determined continually
• Freedom is restricted by genetics, social position, & competitiveness of others
• Each person begins life with a potential for healthy development, but people need favorable conditions for growth
• Basic Hostility


  • Happens if parents fail to meet needs for safety and satisfaction
  • Children seldom express rage overtly
  • They repress hostility towards parents and have no awareness of it
  • Instead, they develop into feelings of insecurity and sense of apprehension
• Basic Anxiety


  • Feeling of being isolated and helpless in a world that is potentially hostile
  • Feeling of being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted, endangered, in a world that is out to abuse, cheat attack, humiliate, betray, and envy
• Basic Anxiety can grow from basic humility but can also produce feelings of hostility
• Defense Mechanisms: Protection against Basic Anxiety

  • Affection - some lead to authentic love, some to superficial love
  • Submissiveness - submit to other people or to institutions such as organizations or religion
  • Power, Prestige, and Possession - Power: defense against hostility / tend to dominate others, Prestige: defense against humiliation / tend to humiliate, Possession: defense against poverty / tend to deprive
  • Withdrawal - some develop independence; some become emotionally detached from others
• Compulsive Drives


  Neurotic trends and neurotic needs
• Moving Toward People


  • The compliant personality
  • Basic Conflict: feeling of helplessness
  • Desperate striving for affection and approval
  • Seeking a powerful partner who will take responsibility for their lives
• Moving Against People


  • The aggressive personality
  • Basic Conflict: Protection against hostile world
  • Exploiting and using others for own benefit
  • Seeking for power, prestige, and personal ambition
  • Driven by Hyper Competitiveness - exaggerated neurotic need to move against others
• Moving Away From People

  • The detached personality
  • Basic Conflict: Feelings of Isolation
  • Fear of needing and associating with others
  • Putting emotional distance and expressing need for privacy and self-sufficiency
• Intense need to be strong and powerful with self belief of perfection and hidden greatness is an attempt to combat Basic Anxiety
• Basic Anxiety


  Feeling of being isolated and helpless in a world conceived as hostile
• Defenses which are more specific especially with neurotic individuals overlap and a single person may have more than one
• Neurotic Needs


  • Moving Towards: Affection and Approval, Powerful Partner, Narrow limits to life
  • Moving Against: Power, Exploitation, Recognition and Prestige, Personal Admiration, Personal Achievement
  • Moving Away: Self-Sufficiency and Independence, Perfection and Unassailability
• Feminine Psychology


  • Differences among men and women are not a result of anatomy but of social and cultural expectations
  • Recognized the existence of Oedipus Complex, but insisted it was due to environmental conditions
  • Denied Penis Envy - there is no anatomical reason why girls should be envious of penis and boys should desire womb
  • Agreed with Adler's Masculine Protest - there is a wish for qualities or privileges which are culturally accepted as masculine
  • Each sex has qualities/ attributes that the other admires
  • Believed in the change and development of personality across the lifespan
• Psychosocial Theory


  Ego emerges from and is largely shaped by culture
• Epigenetic Principle


  The ego grows as our organs do; developing sequentially, with certain changes arising at a particular time and with more recent developments built upon previous structures