KAREN

HORN
EY
Psychoanalytic Social Theory

“Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.”

– K. Horney
 Karen Danielsen Horney
ψBorn in Blankenese, small town near Hamburg, Germany as
Karen Clementina Theodora Danielsen on September 15,
1885
ψOnly daughter of Berndt (Wackels) Danielsen, sea captain
and Clothilda van Ronzelen Danielsen, who was 18-19 years
his junior (also second wife)
ψHad five siblings: four from Berndt’s first marriage (all
males) and one older brother (also named Berndt)
ψFelt hostility towards her father and regarded him as
religious hypocrite but greatly favored her mother
ψFelt deprived of affection
because of her father’s
preference of her older
brother, Berndt
ψShe was the acting
housekeeper when her
mother is not around which
included keeping her
brothers’ things organized.
ψAt age nine, she developed a
crush towards her brother
but was turned down leading
to her first bout with
depression
 EARLY ADULTHOOD
ψAt 13, she wanted to become a
physician (as well as the rest of
her siblings but she was the only
one who succeeded) much to his
father’s opposition and society
ψIn 1904, her parents divorced
leaving Karen, 19 and Berndt,
23
ψIn 1906, she entered University
of Freiburg where she met
Oscar Horney, political science
student
ψIn 1909, they married and
stayed in Berlin
ψShe became one of the boys because she saw that being girly
would only lead to ridicule
ψEarned an MD in 1911 in University of Berlin (after Freiburg and
Gottingen)
 EARLY MARRIAGE
YEARS
ψParents were divorced and died a
year after the other
ψShe gave birth to three daughters in
five years (1910: Brigitte, 1913:
Marianne, 1916: Renate)
ψOskar was just like her father, Berndt,
as predicted by Freud – harsh,
authoritative disciplinarian
ψShe had several love affairs
 DOWN THE HILLS WE GO
ψIn 1923, Oskar developed meningitis and lost his job and
forced to live in Berlin
ψIn the same year, Horney's brother died at age forty of
pulmonary infection
ψIn 1926, they separated but did not officially divorce until
1938
 KAREN HORNEY’S ROLLING
IN THE DEEP
ψIn 1913, she began an analysis with Karl Abraham
ψIn 1917, she wrote her first paper on psychoanalysis, “The
Technique of Psychoanalytic Therapy”
ψIn 1919, she began to take in patients at Berlin Psychoanalytic Clinic
and Institute until 1932
ψIn 1932, she became associate director of Chicago Pychoanalytic
Institute
ψIn 1950, she published her most important work, Neurosis and
Human Growth
ψIn 1952, she established Karen Horney Clinic
 HORNEY VS FREUD

ψFreud’s ‘penis envy’ and ‘Oedipus

complex’ concepts, instinct-driven
people and Freud’s male
chauvinism were the main reasons
of Horney’s drifting away
BOOKS BY KAREN HORNEY
The Neurotic Personality of our Time (1937)
New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939)
Self-Analysis (1942)
Our Inner Conflicts (1945)
Are You Considering Psychoanalysis? (1946)
Neurosis and Human Growth (1950)
The Collected Works of Karen Horney (1950)
The Adolescent Diaries of Karen Horney (1980)
The Unknown Karen Horney: Essays on Gender, Culture, and
Psychoanalysis (2000)
 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL THEORY
Social and Cultural Conditions Largely
Responsible for Shaping Personality
When Needs Are Not Met in Childhood, Basic
Hostility and Anxiety Arise
Combat Basic Anxiety in Three Ways:
Moving toward people
Moving against people
Moving away from people
PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL
THEORY
Karen’s Theory
Mental Problems Arise From Environmental
Factors Specific to Culture and Time
Parenting Practices
Money, Food, Jobs, Providing for Family
Neuroses Share Central Conflicts but
are Manifested Differently in Each
Person
PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL
THEORY
Horney and Freud Compared
Horney’s criticisms of Freud’s Theories
1. Orthodoxy leads to theoretical and clinical stagnation
2. Inaccurate views of feminine psychology
3. Should move beyond instinct and examine culture
The Impact of Culture
The Importance of Childhood Experiences
 IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE
– Culture is the basis for neurotic and normal
development; modern culture is based on competition
– Competitiveness and Basic Hostility spawn from
Feelings of Isolation
• “We avoid every opportunity of being and feeling
lonely, therefore, cellphones
• Feeling of loneliness needs of affection overvaluing
love people see love and affection as an answer to their
problems
• Genuine love is different from a desperate need for
love
 IMPORTANCE OF CHILDHOOD

❖To Horney, people are

motivated not by sexual
or aggressive forces but
by needs for security and
love.
 IMPORTANCE OF CHILDHOOD
Safety Need - “need for security and freedom from
fear” (1973)
Eroded by withholding warmth and affection
Social forces in childhood, not biological forces
influence personality
No universal stages of development
Childhood is dominated by need for security and
freedom from fear
Parents foster security by treating the child with warmth and affection
Normality of personality development direct function of level of
warmth and affection received by parents
IMPORTANCE OF CHILDHOOD
Basic hostility is first response
1. If successful → Aggressive coping
strategies
2. If unsucessful → Child represses hostility
Intimidation
Fear of losing (fake) expressed love
Guilt
Repressed hostility → Basic Anxiety
 BASIC ANXIETY: FOUNDATION
OF NEUROSIS
“An insidiously increasing, all-pervading feeling of being
lonely and helpless in a hostile world” (Horney, 1973 pg
89)
Attempts to control basic anxiety
1. Securing love and affection
2. Being Submissive
3. Attaining Power
Achieve success through a sense of superiority
4. Withdrawing
Blunting/Minimising emotional needs
• Affection – does not always lead to authentic
love (ex. Sex, gifts)
• Submissiveness – people do this with other
people, institutions, orgs, or religious groups. People
attempt this seamless union in order to gain affection
• Power – tendency to dominate others
Prestige – protect self from humiliation by
humiliating others (belittling someone, to make self
appear better)
Possession – depriving others (greed); protect self
from poverty
• Withdrawal – emotional detachment (“no one can
hurt me” “I don’t care”)
 BASIC ANXIETY: FOUNDATION
OF NEUROSIS
Self-protective mechanisms
Defence against pain, not a pursuit of
well-being
Powerful + Intense = more compelling than
sexual/physiological needs
Reduce anxiety but personality is left
deficient
Usually one mechanism overbears the other
three
COMPULSIVE DRIVES

Neurotic individuals are frequently

trapped in a vicious circle in which
their compulsive need to reduce
basic anxiety leads to a variety of
self-defeating behaviors; these
behaviors then produce more basic
anxiety, and the circle continues.
 NEUROTIC NEEDS
Affection and Approval Perfection
Self-sufficiency Prestige or Social Recognition
Power Achievement or Ambition
Exploitation of others Personal Admiration
Setting Narrow Limits to Life A Dominant or Powerful Partner
• Abnormal in a neurotic as
• Unrealistic/Unreasonable/Indiscriminate
• Intense → Extreme Anxiety if not met

• Intensive and compulsive pursuit of their satisfaction as the only

way to resolve basic anxiety
• Do not aid indl feel safe/secure
• Aid the desire to escape discomfort caused by anxiety
 NEUROTIC NEEDS
1. The neurotic need for affection and approval. In their quest
for affection and approval, neurotics attempt
indiscriminately to please others. They try to live up to the
expectations of others, tend to dread self-assertion, and
are quite uncomfortable with the hostility of others as well
as the hostile feelings within themselves.
2. The neurotic need for a powerful partner. Lacking
self-confidence, neurotics try to attach themselves to a
powerful partner. This need includes an overvaluation of
love and a dread of being alone or deserted. Horney’s own
life story reveals a strong need to relate to a great man,
and she had a series of such relationships during her adult
life.
 NEUROTIC NEEDS
3. The neurotic need to restrict one’s life within narrow
borders. Neurotics frequently strive to remain
inconspicuous, to take second place, and to be content
with very little. They downgrade their own abilities and
dread making demands on others.
4. The neurotic need for power. Power and affection are
perhaps the two greatest neurotic needs. The need for
power is usually combined with the needs for prestige
and possession and manifests itself as the need to
control others and to avoid feelings of weakness or
stupidity.
NEUROTIC NEEDS

5. The neurotic need to exploit others. Neurotics

frequently evaluate others on the basis of how
they can be used or exploited, but at the same
time, they fear being exploited by others.
6. The neurotic need for social recognition or
prestige. Some people combat basic anxiety
by trying to be first, to be important, or to
attract attention to themselves.
 NEUROTIC NEEDS
7. The neurotic need for personal admiration.
Neurotics have a need to be admired for what
they are rather than for what they possess. Their
inflated self-esteem must be continually fed by
the admiration and approval of others.
8. The neurotic need for ambition and personal
achievement. Neurotics often have a strong drive
to be the best—the best salesperson, the best
bowler, the best lover. They must defeat other
people in order to confirm their superiority.
 NEUROTIC NEEDS
9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence.
Many neurotics have a strong need to move away from
people, thereby proving that they can get along without
others. The playboy who cannot be tied down by any
woman exemplifies this neurotic need.
10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability. By
striving relentlessly for perfection, neurotics receive
“proof ” of their self-esteem and personal superiority.
They dread making mistakes and having personal flaws,
and they desperately attempt to hide their weaknesses
from others.
NEUROTIC TREND

▪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.
▪Although these neurotic trends constitute
Horney’s theory of neurosis, they also apply to
normal individuals.
NEUROTIC TREND

People can use each of the neurotic

trends to solve basic conflict, but
unfortunately, these solutions are
essentially nonproductive or neurotic.
Horney (1950) used the term basic
conflict because very young children are
driven in all three directions— toward,
against, and away from people.
The neurotic trends are:
■ Movement toward other people (the
compliant personality),
■ Movement against other people (the
aggressive personality), and
■ Movement away from other people (the
detached personality).
 MOVEMENT TOWARD OTHER
PEOPLE (THE COMPLIANT
PERSONALITY)
Horney’s concept of moving toward people
does not mean moving toward them in the spirit
of genuine love. Rather, it refers to a neurotic
need to protect oneself against feelings of
helplessness.
The compliant personality displays attitudes
and behaviors that refl ect a desire to move
toward other people: an intense and continuous
need for affection and approval, an urge to be
loved, wanted, and protected.
 MOVEMENT AGAINST OTHER
PEOPLE (THE AGGRESSIVE
PERSONALITY)
Just as compliant people assume that everyone
is nice, aggressive people take for granted that
everyone is hostile. As a result, they adopt the
strategy of moving against people.
Aggressive personalities move against other
people. In their world, everyone is hostile; only
the fittest and most cunning survive.
 MOVEMENT AWAY FROM
OTHER PEOPLE (THE DETACHED
PERSONALITY).
moving away from people strategy is an expression
of needs for privacy, independence, and
self-sufficiency. these needs become neurotic when
people try to satisfy them by compulsively putting
emotional distance between themselves and other
people.
People described as detached personalities are
driven to move away from other people and to
maintain an emotional distance. They must not love,
hate, or cooperate with others or become involved in
any way.
 NEUROTIC TRENDS
Trend Moving TOWARDS Moving AGAINST Moving AWAY
others others FROM others

Personality Compliant Aggressive Detached

Basic source of • Repressed Hostility • Insecurity and • Need to Feel
Neurotic Trend & Desire to Anxiety Superior
Manipulate/ Exploit • Protection against • Desparate Desire
hostile world for Privacy
Neurotic Needs • Affection & • Power • Self-sufficiency
Approval • Exploitation • Perfection
• Powerful Partner • Social Prestige & • Narrow Limits
Recognition to Life
• Personal
Admiration
• Personal
Achievement
Normal Friendly, loving Healthy Serene Autonomy
analogue competitiveness 36
NEUROTIC TRENDS TO NEUROSIS
NEUROSIS
Neurotics are
Ag • Rigid
gr • Inflexible
ess • Meet all situations with
ive behaviours and attitudes
characteristic of dominant trend
De • Regardless of suitability
pliant tac
hed
m
Co

37
 NORMAL

T
ME
Safety
Needs BASIC SN Unmet, BASIC
UNMET Repressed
HOSTILITY ANXIETY

SN
NEUROSIS MET

Self Protective Mech

Aggressive Coping 1. Securing love and
CONFLICT Strategies affection
2. Being Submissive
3. Attaining Power
Neurotic Trends 4. Withdrawing
1. Aggressive .
2. Compliant Neurotic
3. Detached Needs 38
INTRAPSYCHIC CONFLICTS

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.
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. Added to this failure is a
growing sense of alienation from
themselves.
Intrapsychic conflicts have
become very different from
Interpersonal conflicts (origin);
two kinds:
– Idealized self-image:
painting a godlike picture of
oneself
– Self-hatred: despising real
self
 SELF IMAGE IN THE NEUROTIC
• Splits self into
• Despised self-image
• Idealised self-image

• Swings between hating self

and pretending to be perfect

Pretending Perfection Self-hatred

• Neurotic Search for Glory • Self-accusation

• Need for perfection • Self-frustration
• Vindictive triumph • Self-torture
• Neurotic Ambition • Self-destructive actions/impulses
• Neurotic Claim
• Neurotic Pride 42

Normal Self-Image
1. Based on realistic appraisal of 1.
abilities, potential + working
2. Flexible, dynamic, adapts as 2.
the indl develops and changes
3. Functions as a goal +
encourages growth
Neurotic Idealised
Self-Image
Based on unattainable ideal
of absolute perfection
Static, inflexible and
unyielding
3. Hinders growth by
1. demanding rigid adherence
2. Providing illusion of self
which does not allow
correction of cause of anxiety
/ insecurity
IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE
• Healthy person: develops security and confidence and
ultimately, self-realization
• Unhealthy person: feels alienated from self,
desperate to acquire a sense of identity forms an
Idealized self-image
– A person who has an unrealistic / perfect view of self
as heroic, all-knowing, saint-like, etc.
– Idealized self-image has 3 aspects: (1) Neurotic
search for glory, (2)Neurotic Claims, (3) Neurotic
Pride
IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE
Neurotic search for glory – the drive that moves us
to actualizing our Idealized self-image; has 4
elements:
• Self-idealization (thought process, imagination)
• Need for perfection (molding self, sets of dos and
don'ts; tyranny of the shoulds)
• Neurotic ambition (the compulsive drive toward
superiority)
• Drive toward a vindictive triumph (aim to put
others to shame or defeat them through one’s success)
THINKING CRITICALLY
The Tyranny of the Should
Can you name some significant “shoulds” that
you have devised to safeguard your image
of self, such as being a good student or
maintaining an ideal weight?
Can you identify the origin of your “shoulds”?
Can you think of different “shoulds” that
diverse cultures foster?
What might happen if you were to give up
one of the “shoulds” that is giving you
problems?
IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE

• Neurotic Claims – statement that together

make up a fantasy of a person wherein he
deserve greater than others (I
deserve….because [irrational explanation])
• Neurotic Pride – not a realistic view of
self; loudly proclaimed in order to protect
and support a glorified self (likes to post
p-shopped pictures, posting achievements,
exaggerates one’s profile)
SELF-HATRED
If we use our glorified self as a measure of
our worth, we will end up despising our
‘self’; there are six major ways of
self-hatred:
– Relentless demand of the self (tyranny
of the shoulds, “basta, mali, dapat…”)
– Merciless self-accusation (blaming self,
scrutinizing self negatively)
– Self-contempt (doubting, discrediting self,
self loathe, inability to be proud of self)
SELF-HATRED
– Self-frustration (restricting self and
saying “I don’t deserve this; putting self in
frustrating situations)
– Self-torment (‘self-torture’, starting an
activity that one can definitely fail in,
exaggerating a headache, physical abuse)
– Self destructive actions and impulses
(compared to Self-torment, Self destructive
actions and impulses are chronic, breaking
off a healthy relationship)
One way in which neurotics
attempt to defend themselves
against the inner conflicts caused
by the discrepancy between
idealized and real self-images is
by externalization, projecting the
conflicts onto the outside world.
 FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY
Freud – Women suffered from:
Penis envy
Incompletely developed morality (Electra conflicts inadequately
resolved)
Inferior body images (believed they were castrated men)
Womb Envy
Men envy women because of their capacity for motherhood
Based on pleasure she experienced during childbirth
Men overcompensate for womb envy by
Overachieving at work
Indulge in behaviour designed to disparage/belittle women
Form social dictums to reinforce inferior status
53
 FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY
(CONT)
Oedipus complex
Conflict between parents and children did
not have sexual origin
Conflict between Dependence on Parents
& Hostility towards them
Conflict NOT Universal
Develop only when parents undermine child’s
sense of security
54
 FREUD HORNEY

Personality governed by Personality governed by

unmodifiable biological factors management of safety needs of
child

Conflict of childhood – sexual Conflict of childhood – basic

coveting of mother hostility v/s dependence

Conflict of childhood was Only present if upbringing

universal compromised
Inferiority of women a biological Reinforced by social trends
reality stemming from male basic
anxiety
Penis envy Womb envy
55
“We shall not be very
greatly surprised if a
woman analyst, who
has not been
sufficiently convinced
of the intensity of her
own wish for a penis,
also fails to attach
proper importance to
that factor in her
patients” – Freud, 1940
56
PSYCHOTHERAPY
The general goal of Horneyian therapy is
to help patients gradually grow in the
direction of self-realization. More
specifically, 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.
PSYCHOTHERAPY

The therapist’s task is to

convince patients that their
present solutions are
perpetuating rather than
alleviating the core neurosis, a
task that takes much time and
hard work.
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. Moreover, they must
see how all these factors are
interrelated and operate to preserve
their basic neurosis.
As to techniques, Horneyian
therapists use many of the same
ones employed by Freudian
therapists, especially dream
interpretation and free
association. Horney saw dreams
as attempts to solve conflicts,
but the solutions can be either
neurotic or healthy.
When therapy is successful, patients gradually
develop confidence in their ability to assume
responsibility for their psychological
development. They move toward self-realization
and all those processes that accompany it; they
have a deeper and clearer understanding of
their feelings, beliefs, and wishes; they relate to
others with genuine feelings instead of using
people to solve basic conflicts; at work, they
take a greater interest in the job itself rather
than seeing it as a means to perpetuate a
neurotic search for glory.
STRENGTHS OF HORNEY’S THEORIES
AND IDEAS
Provided optimism
Elaborated/Modified Freud's concepts
Ego-ideal
Defense mechanisms
Created feminine complements to Freud's ideas
Acknowledged social, cultural, and environmental
factors play a role in development
Focused more on the present and future rather than
past experience
WEAKNESS OF HORNEY’S THEORIES
AND IDEAS

All ideas are based on clinical

observation
Concept of Idealized self is a false
picture of personality
Neurotic needs is not a realistic
way of dealing with anxiety
HER INFLUENCE

Hyper competitiveness
Erik Erickson and “basic mistrust”
Therapeutic Techniques
Present situation
Interpersonal
Group therapy
KAREN
HORNE
Y
“I DO NOT
WANT TO
FOUND A NEW
SCHOOL BUT
TO BUILD ON
THE
FOUNDATIONS
FREUD HAS
LAID”