KAR

EN
HOR
NEY
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
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
NEUROTIC TRENDS TO
NEUROSIS
Aggressive NEUROSIS
Neurotics are
• Rigid
• Inflexible
• Meet all situations with
behaviours and attitudes
characteristic of dominant trend
• Regardless of suitability
 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
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
 Normal Self-
Image
1. Based on realistic appraisal of 1. Based on unattainable ideal
abilities, potential + working
2. Flexible, dynamic, adapts as
the indl develops and changes
3. Functions as a goal +
encourages growth
Neurotic Idealised
Self-Image
of absolute perfection
2. 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
 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
 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
“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
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
HORNEY
“I DO NOT WANT TO FOUND A NEW
SCHOOL BUT TO BUILD ON THE
FOUNDATIONS FREUD HAS LAID”
–IN QUINN, 1987 PG 318