• Her main quarrel with Freud was not so much the
Karen Horney
• Complicated Family
• Childhood was rough.
• She considered her father a religious hypocrite.
• She was one of the first women to be enrolled in a
medicine school.
• She had many love affairs.
Psychoanalytic Social Theory
• The psychoanalytic social theory of Karen Horney
(pronounced Horn-eye) was built on the assumption
that social and cultural conditions, especially childhood
experiences, are largely responsible for shaping
personality.
• People who do not have their needs for love and
affection satisfied during childhood develop basic
hostility toward their parents and, as a consequence,
suffer from basic anxiety.
• Horney theorized that people combat basic anxiety by
adopting one of three fundamental styles of relating to
others:
• Moving towards people
• Moving against people
• Moving away from people
• Normal individuals may use any of these modes of
relating to other people, but neurotics are compelled to
rigidly rely on only one.
• Neurotics' compulsive behavior generates a basic
intrapsychic conflict that may take the form of either an
idealized self-image or self-hatred.
• The idealized self-image is expressed as (1) neurotic
search for glory, (2) neurotic claims, or (3) neurotic
pride.
• Self-hatred is expressed as either self contempt or
alienation from self
Horney Vs. Freud
• First, she cautioned that strict adherence to orthodox
psychoanalysis would lead to stagnation in both
theoretical thought and therapeutic practice (Horney,
1937)
• Second, Horney (1937, 1939) objected to Freud's ideas
on feminine psychology, a subject we return to later.
Third, she stressed the view that psychoanalysis should
move beyond instinct theory and emphasize the
importance of cultural influences in shaping personality.
• She claimed that neuroses are not the result of
instincts but rather of the person's "attempt to find
paths through a wilderness full of unknown dangers"
accuracy of his observations but the validity of his
interpretations.
• Her view of humanity is an optimistic one and is
centered on cultural forces that are amenable to change
(Horney, 1950)
Impact of Culture
• Modern culture, she contended, is based on
competition among individuals. "Everyone is a real or
potential competitor of everyone else"
• Competitiveness and the basic hostility it spawn result
in feelings of isolation
• These feelings of being alone in a potentially hostile
world lead to intensified needs for affection, which, in
turn, cause people to overvalue love.
• Genuine love, of course, can be a healthy,
growth-producing experience; but the desperate need
for love (such as that shown by Horney herself) provides
a fertile ground for the development of neuroses.
• Western society (and even in the Philippines)
contributes to this vicious circle in several respects.
• People of this society are imbued with the cultural
teachings of kinship and humility. These teachings,
however, run contrary to another prevailing attitude,
namely, aggressiveness and the drive to win or be
superior.
• Second, society's demands for success and
achievement are nearly endless, so that even when
people achieve their material ambitions, additional
goals are continually being placed before them.
• Third, Western society tells people that they are free,
that they can accomplish anything through hard work
and perseverance.
• In reality, however, the freedom of most people is
greatly restricted by genetics, social position, and the
competitiveness of others.
• Utang na Loob
• Children as Retirement Plan
Importance of Childhood Experience
• A variety of traumatic events, such as sexual abuse,
beatings, open rejection, or pervasive neglect, may
leave their impressions on a child's future development;
but Horney (1937) insisted that these debilitating
experiences can almost invariably be traced to lack of
genuine warmth and affection.
• Horney (1939) hypothesized that a difficult childhood
is primarily responsible for neurotic needs.
• The totality of early relationships molds personality
development. "Later attitudes to others, then, are not
repetitions of infantile ones but emanate from the
character structure, the basis of which is laid in
childhood"
Basic Hostility and Basic Anxiety
• If a child grew up in a family with genuine love, they
will grow up with feelings of security and satisfaction
which will permit them to grow in accordance with their
real self.
• Unfortunately, not all children grow in that kind of
environment.
• If parents do not satisfy the child's needs for safety
and satisfaction, the child develops feelings of basic
hostility toward the parents.
• However, children seldom overtly express this hostility
as rage; instead, they repress their hostility toward their
parents and have no awareness of it. Repressed hostility
then leads to profound feelings of insecurity and a
vague sense of apprehension.
Basic Anxiety
• Basic Anxiety - Horney (1950) defined as "a feeling of
being isolated and helpless in a world conceived as
potentially hostile" (p. 18). Earlier, she gave a more
graphic description, calling basic anxiety "a feeling of
being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted,
endangered, in a world that is out to abuse, cheat,
attack, humiliate, betray, envy" (Horney, 1937, p. 92).
• Basic anxiety itself is not a neurosis, but "it is the
nutritive soil out of which a definite neurosis may
develop at any time" (Horney, 1937, p. 89).
Managing Basic Anxiety
• To manage this anxiety, Horney initially conceptualized
four general ways of managing this
• Affection
• Submissiveness
• Power, Prestige, Possession
• Withdrawal
Compulsive Drives
• Whereas normal individuals are able to use a variety
of defensive maneuvers in a somewhat useful way,
neurotics compulsively repeat the same strategy in an
essentially unproductive manner.
• This defensive strategy traps them in a vicious circle in
which their compulsive needs to reduce basic anxiety
lead to behaviors that perpetuate low self-esteem,
generalized hostility, inappropriate striving for power,
inflated feelings of superiority, and persistent
apprehension, all of which result in more basic anxiety
Neurotic Needs
• Neurotic Needs - Horney tentatively identified 10
categories of neurotic needs that characterize neurotics
in their attempts to combat basic anxiety.
• The neurotic need for affection and approval
• The neurotic need for a powerful partner
• The neurotic need to restrict one's life within narrow
borders.
• The neurotic need for power
• The neurotic need to exploit others.
• The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige.
• The neurotic need for personal admiration
• The neurotic need for ambition and personal
achievement.
• The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and
independence.
• The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability.
Neurotic Trends
• Neurotic Trends - As her theory evolved, Horney
began to see that the list of 10 neurotic needs could be
grouped into three general categories, each relating to a
person's basic attitude toward self and others.
• Whereas normal people are mostly or completely
conscious of their strategies toward other people,
neurotics are unaware of their basic attitude; although
normals are free to choose their actions, neurotics are
forced to act; whereas normals experience mild conflict,
neurotics experience severe and insoluble conflict; and
whereas normals can choose from a variety of
strategies, neurotics are limited to a single trend.
Moving Towards People
• In their attempts to protect themselves against
feelings of helplessness, compliant people employ
either or both of the first two neurotic needs; that is,
they desperately strive for affection and approval of
others, or they seek a powerful partner who will take
responsibility for their lives.
Moving Against People
• Just as compliant people assume that everyone is nice,
aggressive people take for granted that everyone is
hostile.
• Rather than moving toward people in a posture of
submissiveness and dependence, these people move
against others by appearing tough or ruthless.
• They are motivated by a strong need to exploit others
and to use them for their own benefit. They seldom
admit their mistakes and are compulsively driven to
appear perfect, powerful, and superior.
• Karens, not the Horney. Karens in the Internet
Moving Away from People
• In order to solve the basic conflict of isolation, some
people behave in a detached manner and adopt this
trend.
• This strategy is an expression of needs for privacy,
independence, and self-sufficiency. Again, each of these
needs can lead to positive behaviors, with some people
satisfying these needs in a healthy fashion.
• However, these needs become neurotic when people
try to satisfy them by compulsively putting emotional
distance between themselves and other people
Intrapsychic Conflicts
• Intrapsychic Conflicts - As her theory evolved, she
began to place greater emphasis on the inner conflicts
that both normal and neurotic individuals experience.
• Intrapsychic processes originate from interpersonal
experiences; but as they become part of a person's
belief system, they develop a life of their own-an
existence separate from the interpersonal conflicts that
gave them life.
Idealized Self image
• Idealized Self-Image- is an attempt to solve conflicts by
painting a godlike picture of oneself
• Horney believed that human beings, if given an
environment of discipline and warmth, will develop
feelings of security and self-confidence and a tendency
to move toward self realization.
• Unfortunately, early negative influences often impede
people's natural tendency toward self-realization, a
situation that leaves them with feelings of isolation and
inferiority.
• Feeling alienated from themselves, people need
desperately to acquire a stable sense of identity.
• This dilemma can be solved only by creating an
idealized self-image, an extravagantly positive view of
themselves that exists only in their personal belief
system.
Idealized Self image
• Neurotics glorify and worship themselves in different
ways.
• Compliant people see themselves as good and saintly.
• Aggressive people build an idealized image of
themselves as strong, heroic, and omnipotent.
• Detached neurotics paint their self-portraits as wise,
self-sufficient, and independent.
• Rather than growing toward self-realization, they
move toward actualizing their
idealized self.
Three Aspects of Idealized Self-image
• Neurotic Search for Glory - As neurotics come to
believe in the reality of their idealized self, they begin to
incorporate it into all aspects of their lives-their goals,
their self concept, and their relations with others
• Need for Perfection - Tyranny of the Should
• Neurotic Ambition - Compulsive drive towards
superiority
• Drive toward Vindicative Triumph - it is not enough to
just win, neurotics needs to drive the point and
humiliate their enemy to the ground (Babangon ako at
dudurugin kita)
• Neurotic Claims - In their search for glory, neurotics
build a fantasy world-a world that is out of sync with the
real world.
• 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.
• Example: Karens, and students who demand
unrealistic grades.
• Neurotic Pride - a false pride based not on a realistic
view of the true self but on a spurious image of the
idealized self.
• Neurotics imagine themselves to be glorious,
wonderful, and perfect, so when others fail to treat
them with special consideration, their neurotic pride is
hurt.
• To prevent the hurt, they avoid people who refuse to
yield to their neurotic claims, and instead, they try to
become associated with socially prominent and
prestigious institutions and acquisitions.
Self hatred
• Self-Hatred - People with a neurotic search for glory
can never be happy with themselves because when they
realize that their real self does not match the insatiable
demands of their idealized self, they will begin to hate
and despise themselves
• There are 6 major ways of expressing Self hatred
Self-hatred expressions
•Relentless demands on the self (Tyranny of the
should)
• Merciless self-accusation (Impostor Syndrome)
• Self-contempt - which might be expressed as belittling,
disparaging, doubting, discrediting, and ridiculing
oneself.
• Self-frustration - Horney (1950) distinguished between
healthy self-discipline and neurotic self-frustration. The
former involves postponing or forgoing pleasurable
activities in order to achieve reasonable goals. Self
frustration stems from self-hatred and is designed to
actualize an inflated self-image.
Self hatred expression
• Self-torment, or self-torture
• Some people attain masochistic satisfaction by
anguishing over a decision, exaggerating the pain of a
headache, cutting themselves with a knife, starting a
fight that they are sure to lose, or inviting physical
abuse.
• Self-destructive actions and impulses
which may be either physical or psychological, conscious
or unconscious, acute or chronic, carried out in action or
enacted only in the imagination.
• Overeating, abusing alcohol and other drugs, working
too hard, driving recklessly, and suicide are common
expressions of physical self-destruction.
• Can also be psychological - for example, quitting a job
just when it begins to be fulfilling, breaking off a healthy
relationship in favor of a neurotic one, or engaging in
promiscuous sexual activities
Feminine Psychology
• For Horney, psychic differences between men and
women are not the result of anatomy but rather of
cultural and social expectations.
• Horney (1937) insisted that basic anxiety is at the core
of men's need to subjugate women and women's wish
to humiliate men.
• Although Horney (1939) recognized the existence of
the Oedipus complex, she insisted that it was due to
certain environmental conditions and not to biology.
• Boys sometimes do express a desire to have a baby,
but this desire is not the result of a universal male
"womb envy."
• The aim is to have patients give up their idealized
self-image, relinquish their neurotic search for glory, and
change self-hatred to an acceptance of the real self.
• Self-understanding must go beyond information; it
must be accompanied by an emotional experience.
Patients must understand their pride system, their
idealized image, their neurotic search for glory, their
self-hatred, their shoulds, their alienation from self, and
their conflicts.
• Dream analysis and free association can be used to
determine a patient's idealized self image and basic
conflicts.
• When therapy is successful, patients gradually develop
confidence in their ability to assume responsibility for
their psychological development.
Critique of Horney
• Falsifiability is of course a problem as it is based in
psychoanalysis
• The theory did not generate much research
• Organization of knowledge is almost only limited to
neurotics/abnormal personality
• It guides action but only a little (only for neurotics)
• High internal consistency and precise (parsimony)
Concept of Humanity
• Unlike Freud, Horney believed that people can change
(Free will)
• Optimistic
• Middle position in causality and teleology
• Middle position in conscious and unconscious
• Social influence over biology
• Highlights similarities over differences

Horney agreed with Adler that many women possess a

masculine protest; that is, they have a pathological
belief that men are superior to women.
The desire, however, is not an expression of penis envy
but rather "a wish for all those qualities or privileges
which in our culture are regarded as masculine"
• Standards of masculinity and femininity are artificial
standards.

Psychotherapy