Today I have decided to blog about Karen Horney. Horney was a German psychoanalyst and psychologist. Horney has been often classified as a Neo-Freudian from questioning some traditional views of Freud. In 1920, Horney obtained a position at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Berlin, a place where she conducted lectures on psychoanalysis for several years. Years later in life Horney and her children immigrated to New York and eventually settled in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn Karen became friends with intellectuals like Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan. While living in Brooklyn Horney developed and advanced her composite theories related to neurosis and personality from her experiences of working in the field of psychotherapy. In 1937, Horney published the book "The Neurotic Personality of Our Time", which became wide in popularity. In the year of 1941, Horney was able to become Dean of the American Institute of Psychoanalysis, a institute she founded from becoming less at terms with the generally strict, orthodox nature of the psychoanalytic community. Horney's disagreements from Freudian psychology influenced her resigning from her post and shortly after she began a teaching job in the New York Medical College. Horney founded a journal called the American Journal of Psychoanalysis and she taught at the New York Medical College and continued her practice as a psychiatrist until she passed away in 1952. Horney looked at neurosis differently from other psychoanalysts of her time. Her deep interest in neurosis led her to compile a detailed theory of neurosis, with data she obtained from patients. Horney believed neurosis was an ongoing process, with neurosis commonly occurring sporadically through out an individuals lifetime. Horney placed a important emphasis on parental indifference towards the child, believing that a child's perception of events as opposed to the parents intentions is essential to understanding an individuals neurosis. In her research Horney named ten patterns of neurotic needs and they consist of the following:
"Moving Toward People
1. The need for affection and approval; pleasing others and being liked by them.
2. The need for a partner; one whom they can love and who will solve all problems.
Moving Against People
3. The need for power; the ability to bend wills and achieve control over others -- while most persons seek strength, the neurotic may be desperate for it.
4. The need to exploit others; to get the better of them. To become manipulative, fostering the belief that people are there simply to be used.
5. The need for social recognition; prestige and limelight.
6. The need for personal admiration; for both inner and outer qualities -- to be valued.
7. The need for personal achievement; though virtually all persons wish to make achievements, as with No. 3, the neurotic may be desperate for achievement.
Moving Away from People
8. The need for self sufficiency and independence; while most desire some autonomy, the neurotic may simply wish to discard other individuals entirely.
9. The need for perfection; while many are driven to perfect their lives in the form of well being, the neurotic may display a fear of being slightly flawed.
10. Lastly, the need to restrict life practices to within narrow borders; to live as inconspicuous a life as possible".
However Horney later decided to fit these ten needs into three broad categories: compliance-a process of moving towards people or self effacement , aggression also called the moving against people or the expansive solution and detachment which is also refereed to as the moving away from or resigning or a detached personality. Towards the end of her career Horney summarized her ideas in "Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization" which was her major work that was published in 1950, which is a summary of work with some additional views upon her theories as well. Interestingly I thought Horney with Alfred Adler came to form the Neo-Freudian discipline. Horney had strove to redesign in a way the Freudian perspective, presenting a holistic, humanistic view on individual psyche, which placed much emphasis on cultural and social differences everywhere. Horney was a proponent of Maslow's view that self actualization is the ultimate sum of human achievement. Through views on the individual psyche Horney came to believe that the self is at the core of ones own being and potential. Believing that if a person has a correct conception of them self, then a person is free to realize their potential and achieve their desires within reasonable boundaries. So Horney believed that self-actualization is the healthy persons way through life, as opposed to a neurotics clinging to a set of certain needs. Horney also believed that we have views of our self, known as the "real self"("who and what we actually are") and the "ideal self" (the type of person a person feels they should be and this is used as a model to assist in developing potential and achieving self actualization". Horney conducted additional research on the real and ideal self and how they interact with each other and influence different emotions. Horney also believed in a "tyranny of the shoulds and the neurotics hopeless "search for glory" which was related to fallacious "perfection" and a manifestation of self dislike; and she believed these ingrained traits of the psyche will halt a persons potential from being actualized unless the cycle of neurosis is somehow broken, through treatment or otherwise. Horney was also a pioneer of feminine psychiatry and was the first female to present a paper regarding feminine psychiatry. Horney believed examining female trends in behavior was a issue that needed more attention. In an essay called "The Problem of Feminine Masochism" Horney felt she showed that cultures and societies all over encouraged women to rely on men for their love, prestige, wealth, care and protection. Horney pointed out in society, that a will to please, satiate and overvalue men had come to exist in her view. Women were regarded as objects of charm and beauty, witch is at difference with all being's ultimate purpose of self-actualization according to Horney.
Horney believed women traditionally obtained value only through their children and the wider family. Horney went further on into this topic in her essay "The Distrust Between the Sexes" where she compares a husband-wife relationship to a parent-child relationship- and in her writing it is one to be of misunderstanding and one which influences negative neuroses.
Horney believed men and women have motives to be ingenious and productive. Women can satisfy this need by becoming pregnant and give birth according to Horney. Men fulfill this need only by the means of external ways; and Horney proposed that the important accomplishments of men in work or some other field can be viewed as a make up means for their inability to give birth to children. Horney had many interesting ideas that I think make a lot of sense to me and I think it is really interesting to see how she has been influenced and worked with other prominent developers of the field of psychology.