KAREN HORNEY

Neurosis and Human Growth

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Karen Danielsen Horney was born on Germany on September 16, 1885.

Her father has two other marriages. She has stepsisters and stepbrothers.
She received her medical doctorate degree from the University of Berlin in 1915.
She underwent psychoanalytic training, joined the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in 1918,

and began her own private practice one year later.

She ultimately split with Freudian circles over the issue of female sexuality
Karen married Oskar Horney, a businessman, on October 31, 1909. Their union produced

three daughters
The Horneys separated during the 1920s, and were formally divorced in 1939.
Horneys own behavior included all three of the neurotic solutions that form the cornerstone
of her theory:
1. the need to merge with another person and surrender to a passionate relationship with a
man (moving toward people)
2. the need to control such wishes so that she could remain independent and have power
over herself and others (moving against people), and
3. occasional desires to resign from the world during difcult periods in her life by

becoming listless and aloof (moving away from people)

Horney emigrated from Berlin to Chicago in 1932, and joined the New York Psychoanalytic

Institute in 1934.
She was formally disqualied as an instructor and training analyst in 1941 in the Institute
Horney thereupon resigned from the New York Psychoanalytic Society and founded her own
American Institute for Psychoanalysis, whose members for a time included Fromm and

Sullivan.
Karen Horney died in New York of cancer on December 4, 1952.

THE BASIC NATURE OF HUMAN BEINGS

Horney agrees with Adler that our inherent nature is constructive. She concludes that we
have the capacity as well as the desire to develop our healthy potentials and become decent
individuals. Pathological behavior occurs only if this innate tendency toward self-realization

is blocked by external, social forces. We strive to develop our healthy potentialities, and
pathological behavior occurs only if this innate force toward positive growth (selfrealization) is blocked by external, social forces.
Self-realization - Developing ones healthy innate potentials and abilities.
THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY

Horney shares Freuds views about the importance of unconscious processes, including

powerful and actively maintained repressions.

[Neurotics are] torn by inner conicts. . . . Every neurotic . . . is at war with himself
Horney has little to say about the structure and development of personality.
She prefers to devote the majority of her writings to three major applications: neurosis,
psychotherapy, and female sexuality.

FURTHER APPLICATIONS OF HORNEYAN THEORY

Neurosis: The child tries to lessen painful basic anxiety by exaggerating one of its three
main characteristics: helplessness, aggressiveness, or detachment. This results in a
pathological overemphasis on moving toward, against, or away from people. The sufferer
also forms an idealized image that conicts with the real self, conceals the true wishes and
feelings, and establishes unrealistic and unattainable standards. These standards ensure
subsequent failure, which increases the hate for the real self (self-contempt) and dependence
on the idealized image. Neurosis is also typied by claims, shoulds, the quest for glory, and

other symptoms indicative of severe inner conicts.

Psychotherapy: Horneyan psychotherapy strives to unearth and resolve the patients deeply
repressed inner conicts. The patient must learn that the supposedly lifesaving neurotic
solution is actually self-defeating, and that it conceals both powerful opposing forces and the
sufferers true desires and feelings. Procedures include free association, interpretation, more
active participation by the therapist than in Freudian psychoanalysis, and dream

interpretation.
Female sexuality: Horney rejects Freuds contention that women have greater self-contempt
(self-hate) and a weaker superego because they lack the male genital organ. She argues that
cultural inuences cause women to see themselves as inferior and subordinate, and that men
envy certain characteristics of women.

Neurosis
Horney agrees with Freud, Jung, and Adler that neurosis differs from more normal behavior
in degree, rather than in kind. Life is difcult, and all of us experience conicts at one time or
another. However, there are striking differences between healthy conicts and neurotic
conicts. Healthy conicts may be entirely conscious and can usually be resolved, as when
you must choose between going to a party and studying for the next days exam. Neurotic
conicts are considerably more severe, involve a dilemma that appears to be insoluble, and
are always deeply repressed

Basic Anxiety
The feeling of being alone in an unfriendly and frightening world which prevent the child
from relating to people in a normal way. The three main characteristics of basic anxiety are

helplessness, aggressiveness, and detachment.

Horney argues that neurosis results from disturbed interpersonal relationships during

childhood, rather than from some instinctual or libidinal drive.

The parents may behave in such pathogenic ways as domination, overprotectiveness,
humiliation, perfectionism, inconsistency (unreliability), partiality to other siblings, blind
adoration, or neglect. As a result, the child does not develop a feeling of belonging, of
we, but instead a profound insecurity and vague apprehensiveness, for which Horney
use the term basic anxiety.
To lessen the painful feelings of anxiety, the child abandons the healthy drive for selfrealization in favor of an all-out quest for safety. The child seeks safety by exaggerating one
of the three main characteristics of basic anxiety: helplessness, aggressiveness, or
detachment.
The neurotic solution of helplessness is denoted by excessive desires for protection (moving
toward people), the aggressive orientation leads to attempts at domination and mastery
(moving against people), and the detached solution emphasizes the avoidance of others
(moving away from people).

Moving Toward People (Compliance)

A neurotic attempt to reduce anxiety and gain safety by being cared for and protected,
while repressing feelings of aggressiveness and detachment and healthy self-

assertiveness. One of the three neurotic solutions to the problem of basic anxiety.
The sufferer acts as though others must love me, protect me, forgive me, not abandon me
because I am so weak and helpless.
Such individuals consciously believe that they are sincerely interested in other people and
want to be helpful and compliant. They are unaware that they are repressing powerful
hostility, selshness, and healthy self-assertiveness. [The patient who moves toward people
has strongly repressed a] callous lack of interest in others, attitudes of deance, [the
desire] to control and manipulate others, [and] relentless needs to excel or to enjoy
vindictive triumphs

Moving Against People (Mastery)

- A neurotic attempt to reduce anxiety and gain safety by dominating and (mastery)
mastering other people, while repressing feelings of helplessness and detachment and
healthy needs for love. One of the three neurotic solutions to the problem of basic
anxiety.
The neurotic who moves against people regards life as a Darwinian jungle where only the
ttest survive, and tries to reduce anxiety and gain safety through mastery and domination.
The sufferer regards most people as potential enemies. Any situation or relationship is
looked at from the standpoint of what can I get out of it?. . . To [this individual]
ruthlessness is strength,[a] lack of consideration for others [is] honesty, and a callous
pursuit of ones own ends [is] realism
Such individuals consciously believe that they are strong and dominating. They are unaware
that they are repressing powerful feelings of helplessness and a healthy need for love, and
they may behave sadistically toward those who are weak because this serves as an unpleasant
reminder of what they most dislike about themselves. Horney refers to this as the
externalization of unconscious material, a construct that is similar to Freudian and Jungian
projection.

Moving Away From People (Detachment)

- A neurotic attempt to reduce anxiety and gain safety by avoiding other people and trying
to be completely self-sufcient, while repressing feelings of helplessness and
aggressiveness and healthy needs for friendship and love. One of the three neurotic
solutions to the problem of basic anxiety.

The neurotic who moves away from people tries to reduce anxiety and gain safety by
avoiding contact with others.
Such individuals consciously believe that they are completely self-sufcient, and that no
other person or thing is indispensable. They sustain this belief by unconsciously limiting their
needs, numbing their emotions, and overestimating their uniqueness and superiority. They
rarely ask for help, even if this means not getting what they want. They do not realize that no
person is an island, and that they are repressing powerful wishes to be dependent and healthy
desires for afliation and love.

The Idealized Image

- A grandiose, glorious self-image that conceals ones weak and hated real self.
The repressed aspects of the neurotics personality and the painful inner conicts are further
concealed through the development of a glorious idealized image.
A compliant neurotic may believe that she is so unselsh and attractive as to deserve
undying love. An aggressive neurotic may think that he always knows best and never makes
a mistake. Or a detached neurotic who actually craves affection may believe that she is so
capable and self-sufcient as never to need anything from anyone.
Neurotics sell their soul to the devil by abandoning their real desires in favor of the
idealized image. Their creation arises to destroy them.
The idealized image establishes unattainable standards that either bring about eventual
defeat, or cause the sufferer to shrink from the acid test of reality. Such failures increase the
hate for and alienation from the fallible true self (self-contempt), and this intensies the
inner conicts and the dependence on the idealized image. As this image becomes
increasingly unrealistic, the individual feels compelled to bolster it with still greater triumphs
(glory).
Glory - Grandiose feelings of triumph because one appears to have fullled the demands of
the idealized image. However, the neurotic quest for glory is compulsive and insatiable.
A person builds up an idealized image of himself because he cannot tolerate himself as he
actually is. He wavers then between self-adoration and self-contempt, between his idealized
image and his despised image, with no solid middle ground to fall back on. The godlike
[self] is bound to hate his actual [self]. [and this is] the central inner conict.
Self-contempt (self-hate) - Hating ones true abilities, feelings, and wishes because they
differ from (and seem much worse than) the glorious idealized image.

Claims and Shoulds

Claims - Unrealistic demands and expectations that the neurotic imposes on other people.
Shoulds - Commands to conform to the idealized image that come from ones own
personality, but may be externalized and appear (incorrectly) to be imposed by other people.
The idealized image often converts wishes into unrealistic claims, which supposedly entitle
the sufferer to triumph and glory. A lonely individual who unconsciously feels unlovable may
make no effort to alleviate this painful situation, and expect to be invited out by someone
else. A neurotic with repressed feelings of professional incompetence may claim to deserve a
better job without earning it, or even asking for it. Or patients may expect great gains from
psychotherapy without having to work at their problems
The neurotic is also driven by self-imposed inner commands that are designed to satisfy the
idealized image, which Horney calls the tyranny of the should. This may involve the belief
that one should be world famous, totally unselsh, always right, always victorious, a perfect
lover or spouse, and so forth

Other Neurotic Symptoms

A neurotic who moves toward people may occasionally express her healthy selfassertiveness, fear that she will lose the protection of other people, and become even more
compliant. Or a detached neurotic may heed dimly sensed desires for love and affection by
going to a party, only to leave quickly because the need to move away from people becomes
paramount.
Inner conicts between the neurotics repressed true desires and the demands of the
idealized image may turn relatively minor decisions into major and exhausting crises, such as
whether to attend a social function or what to order for dinner in a restaurant.
Other common symptoms of neurosis include hopelessness and despair about ever getting
well, caused by the impossibility of satisfying the idealized image, and fatigue, which results
from wasting substantial energy on the severe inner turmoil. Like Adler, Horney regards the
Oedipus complex as a symptom that results from improper childrearing, rather than as a
universal phenomenon.

Psychotherapy
Theoretical Foundation.

The goal of Horneyan psychotherapy is to unearth and resolve the patients deeply
repressed inner conicts, thereby freeing the innate constructive forces to grow and
develop.
The neurotic who moves toward people discovers the hostility and selshness that
underlie the excessive desires to please others. The neurotic who moves against people
becomes aware of powerful feelings of helplessness. And the neurotic who moves away
from people recognizes the strong dependency needs that conict with the desire to avoid
others. The patient must then bring the central inner conict to light, relinquish the
alluring idealized image, and opt for the substantial satisfaction (and challenge) of
actualizing the real self. The patients] knowledge of himself must not remain an
intellectual knowledge,though it may start this way,but must become an emotional
experience.The mere intellectual realization is in the strict sense of the word no
realization at all: it does not become real to him; it does not become his personal

property; it does not take roots in him.

Therapeutic Procedures
Like Freud, Horney makes extensive use of free association and interpretation. Also, like
Adler, Horney seeks to change the patients chosen objectives and expectations. In
response to a patients profound feelings of hopelessness, the therapist may say: Of
course the situation is difcult. But what makes it hopeless is your own attitude toward it.
If you would consider changing your claims on life, there would be no need to feel
hopeless.
If a patient suffers from powerful fears of being humiliated by others, the therapist may
interpret this as an externalization of intense self-contempt. It is a long and hard lesson
for anybody to learn that others can neither hurt nor establish self-esteem.

Unlike Freud, Horney often encourages patients to engage in self-analysis

Dream Interpretation.
Unlike Adler, Horney regards dreams as indicative of our true feelings, rather than as an
attempt at self-deception.
Dreaming of misplacing ones passport, or of a picture frame that encloses an
empty canvas, expresses the loss of the dreamers real self.
As in individual psychology, dreams of falling reveal the insecurity that underlies
the patients conscious conceit; and as in analytical psychology, dreaming of
being a tramp or idiot may serve as compensation for conscious arrogance.

 A nightmare of being trapped in a room with a murderer reects intense selfcontempt, whereas dreaming of tenderly cultivating a growing plant suggests selfconcern and sympathy.
A dream of making a long-distance telephone call to the therapist indicates the
wish to maintain a detached orientation, and dreaming of the analyst as a jailer
reveals a desire to blame ones difculties on others through externalization.

Resistance and Transference

Horney shares Freuds belief that patients have powerful unconscious resistances to
psychotherapy. But Horney argues that patients defend their neurotic solutions and deny
the existence of their inner conicts in order to preserve a sense of personal unity, avoid
the frightening prospect of change, and cling to the only apparently successful mode of
adjustment that they have ever known. However, resistances are not entirely harmful.
They provide clues about important unconscious issues that the patient wishes to avoid,
and they afford protection when the therapist offers interpretations that are too
threatening.
It does not lie within the power of the analyst to turn the patient into a awless human
being. He can only help him to become free to strive toward an approximation of these
ideals. The aim of analysis is not to render life devoid of risks and conicts, but to
enable an individual eventually to solve his problems himself

Female Sexuality
Although Horney regards herself as a neo-Freudian, her theory of female sexuality hews
more closely to Adler. Her early writings do concede the existence of penis envy; but she
emphatically rejects Freuds contention that healthy women crave a boy baby as a disguised
penis substitute, and that the lack of a penis produces greater self-contempt and a weaker
superego.
According to Horney, an organism biologically built for female functions cannot be ruled
psychologically by a wish for masculine attributes. She points out that Freudian
psychoanalysis is based primarily on studies by male therapists of male patients, which may
well have obscured the joys of motherhood and other uniquely feminine superiorities.
Instead, Horney emphasizes cultural inuences on female behavior. If society regards
strength, courage, independence, and sexual freedom as masculine characteristics, while
depicting frailty and dependence as inherently feminine, women will tend to believe that they

deserve a subordinate position. The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures,
and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine
tendency to lower womens self-respect. Horney argues that envy works both ways, with
men unconsciously jealous of womens breasts, passivity, and ability to bear children. She
also warns that the concept of penis envy may encourage female patients to externalize their
problems by blaming them on nature, rather than on their own neurotic behavior. Every
person belonging to a minority group or to a less privileged group tends to use that status as a
cover for inferiority feelings of various sources
EVALUATION
Criticisms and Controversies
Horney has been criticized for borrowing too freely from individual psychology and/or
Freudian psychoanalysis, and for failing to introduce many new and important constructs.
Despite her protestations, externalization is virtually indistinguishable from projection; the
idealized image is hardly a radical departure from the superiority complex; shoulds operate
much like an overly severe superego; and the idea of intrapsychic conicts between such
opposites as aggressiveness and helplessness closely resembles the defense mechanism of
reaction formation. In addition, self-realization is a concept of Jungian origin.
Horneys emphasis on neurosis causes her to neglect normal personality development. Since
she regards neurosis as a matter of degree, and uses the term neurotic only in the sense of a
person to the extent that he is neurotic