Karen Horney: A Woman of Complexity and Courage

Background: Karen Horney

Karen Danielson was born near Hamburg, Germany September 16, 1885 to father Berndt and mother Clotilde, who was known as Sonni. Berndt Wackles Danielson was a religious authoritarian. Karen was attached to her mother Sonnni because she felt deprived of her father’s affections (Boeree, 2006, para. 2). Karen had a brief crush on her older brother, also named Berndt, at age nine. Feeling rejection from her father and older brother, Karen “became ambitious and rebellious” (Boree, 2006, para. 3). Depression began to take hold of Karen’s life and would continue to reappear in various situations throughout her life. Karen would begin analyzing and questioning her own actions and motives, as well as religious and moral beliefs by writing a detailed diary from thirteen to twenty-four; this diary and self-introspection continued throughout her life (Scheer, 2001).

Karen’s mother divorced her father in 1904 and left the children with Berndt. Two years later, Karen entered medical school and married Oskar Horney in 1909, who is also an authoritarian like her father. The following year, according to Langenderfer (1999), Horney gave birth to the first of three daughters. Horney did not like conflict, and would not intervene with her husband’s discipline; she thought it was encouraging for the children and their independence. Horney studied medicine in Germany, earning her M.D. degree in 1911, the same year her mother died. Horney soon became interested in psychoanalysis and received much of her education in Berlin, “the center of European medicine in the early 1900s” (Scheer, 2011, para. 16). Three years after marrying Oskar Horney, they began a discreet open marriage, in 1912. “Separating her private life from her public self” (Scheer, 2011, para. 4), Horney held up the image of a happy family to the children and others. These stressful moments in life were difficult and challenging, filled with ebbs and flows of depression.

Horney studied psychoanalysis at the University of Berlin during 1913 to 1915, where she was “psychoanalyzed by Karl Abraham, one of Freud’s most ardent supporters” (Scheer, 2001, para. 3). For the next five years, Horney began working in connection with hospitals in Berlin where she practiced psychoanalysis and engaged in outpatient and clinical psychiatric work (Britannica biographies, 2011). Horney often referred her patients to a physiotherapist for relaxation work, dance therapy, or massage because she believed conflict causes many psychosomatic symptoms. Much of Horney’s work began in the 1920s and continued through the 1930s. When Berlin Psychoanalysis Institute was founded in 1920, she joined the teaching staff. In 1923, two environmental events occurred in Horney’s life: Oskar’s business collapsed and her brother died at 40. According to Boeree (2006, para. 6), “Horney became very depressed” and had thoughts of suicide while swimming out to sea while on vacation.

In 1926, she separated from Oskar, taking her daughters to Brooklyn, New York four years later. Horney moved to Chicago in 1932 to become associate director of the Institute for Psychoanalysis and began researching her own cultural experiences. She began to develop theories of neurosis based on her experiences in life as a psychotherapist and building upon Freud’s foundation. According to Britannica Biographies (2011, para. 4), “Horney moved to New York City in 1934 to return to private practice and teach at the New School for Social Research.” In 1937, Horney produced her first theoretical work: The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937); in that same year, Horney and Oskar divorced. Two years later, Horney produced New Ways In Psychoanalysis, “…in which she argued that environmental and social conditions…determine much of individual personality and are major causes of neurosis and personality disorders” (Britannica Biographies, 2011, para. 4). When Karen was released from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1940, she and at least four other influential women formed the American Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Karen Horney practiced, taught, and wrote about psychoanalysis until her death in 1952.

Horney’s Development of Neurosis

Because Horney battled depression, she has a greater understanding of the feelings, wants, and needs of her patients. Horney followed Freud’s techniques of transference, free association, and dream analysis; but, according to Scheer (2001, para. 14), “she used these techniques to find out which major adjustment technique a patient was using, not their repressed memories.” Horney thought it was “just as important to deal with real-life present-day problems as it was to reconstruct childhood emotional states and fantasies” (Britannica Biographies, 2011, para. 5). Horney believed a child experiencing anxiety and helplessness will learn a conditioned primary response that could later develop into a neurosis. Although children progress naturally through their development, a persistent and irrational need can develop into a personality disorder.

Although Horney was trained in Freud’s traditions of the id, ego, and superego; she had ideas that were different than Freud and his disciples. Horney had differences with other psychoanalytic groups in reference to medical training needs and advances in Freudian tradition. Horney believed problems began with environmental factors and not sexual issues, such as Freud believes. Both Freud and Horney agree proper developmental growth during early childhood is of great importance. Horney believes “conflict was rooted in basic anxiety, which is caused by childhood feelings of insecurity…both theories have a basis in repressed hostility” (Scheer, 2001, para. 6). Horney’s personality motivated her to seek and find answers to complex issues of mind/body interaction.

Rejecting Freud’s theory of penis envy, she believes women feel inferior to men because society limits the ability of women to “influence and participate in their culture freely (Hergenhahn & Olson, 1999, p. 144)” (Scheer, 2001, para. 13). Similar to Freud, “she introduced the concept of womb envy” (Britannica Biographies, 2011, para. 3), suggesting men were envious of woman’s ability to give birth and of motherhood which led males to claim superiority in other areas of life. Because of Horney’s personal experiences in life and exposure to certain situations, she could incorporate new ideas and “theories to develop innovative therapeutic methods that she truly believed in” (Scheer, 2001, para. 8); which closely relates to how she deals with her personal problems.

Horney’s Theoretical Perspective

Horney views a neurosis as an inner conflict of coping and controlling personal internal issues. She believes personality can contribute to a neurosis as well as the environment, which helps shape the personality. Parents, peers, and other social factors can influence personality. According to Langenderfer (1999, para. 5), “Neurosis is a ‘psychic disturbance brought by fears and defenses against these fears, and by attempts to find compromise solutions for conflicting tendencies’ (The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, 28-29).” The way a person lives can determine one’s attitudes and neurotic feelings, whether a person can cope with stressors from the environment and how these stressors result in inner conflict within one self. According to Boeree (2006, para. 16), “The key to understanding parental indifference is that it is a matter of the child’s perception, not the parents’ intention.” Anger is the typical result of parental indifference, which Horney calls basic hostility.

Basic Needs to Neurosis

Horney discerned ten patterns of neurotic needs which are based on what every individual needs; these needs become neurotic when they become distorted by the challenges in people’s lives. When needs become unreasonable, indiscriminate, and unrealistic, they become neurotic. The intensity of getting the needs met is “shown clearly at all times, in all circumstances, by all people” (para. 10). High anxiety may result when needs have not been met or may or may not be met when expected. According to Boeree (2006), these basic needs include: (1) need for affection and approval, (2) need for a partner, (3) need to restrict one’s life, (4) need for power, (5) need to impact others, (6) need for recognition, (7) need for personal admiration, (8) need for personal achievement, (9) need for self-sufficiency and independence, and (10) need for perfection. When any of these needs become unreasonable and unrealistic, they become neurotic.

Coping Strategies

These needs are classified into three broad coping strategies: compliance, aggression, and withdrawal. Horney believes parental indifference, a lack of affection and love can cause neurosis. According to Boeree (2006, para. 20), “Most children find themselves as overwhelmed by basic anxiety – a matter of fear of helplessness and abandonment that basic hostility must be suppressed for survival.” The neurotic seeks desperately for affection, acceptance, and approval from others. When the neurotic perceives this need is unmet, he or she may become anxious and the “need to please others and be liked by them” (Boeree, 2006, para. 12) increases to an indiscriminate need. The neurotic need for a partner in an intimate relationship goes too far, believing love will solve everything, and expecting problems to be solved by their partners. As a need to restrict one’s life by avoiding confrontation and remaining unnoticeable, the neurotic is undemanding and unsatisfied with rules.

Children may find aggression effective in the beginning but overtime, can cause a conditioned response that can develop into a neurosis. The neurotic is desperate for strength, control over others, and dominate with a “strong belief in one’s own rational powers” (Boeree, 2006, para. 12). Neurotics seeking to impact others will manipulate and exploit others, for fear of looking stupid or being used. For fear of being ignored, viewed as plain, or less than; the neurotic has a high regard for social status, recognition, or prestige becoming overwhelmingly concerned with popularity and appearance (Boeree, 2006). Neurotics are desperate to feel valued and appreciated out of fear of being unimportant or not needed, meaningless. Obsession with personal achievement, the neurotic wants to lead in first place at everything. Devaluing anything the neurotic is not interested in, occurs frequently.

If the child cannot eliminate the perceived parental indifference by aggression or compliance, the child will begin to withdrawal into themselves and away from others. Neurotics refuse to help and refuse assistance from others, “thinking they can accomplish things by themselves” (Langenderfer, 1999, para. 6). Although they seek attention and a partner, they are reluctant to commit to a relationship, often withdrawing into themselves. The neurotic is driven to perfection, for fear of being flawed in any perception, remaining in constant control.

Emotional forces drive the neurotic to compulsion; feeling isolated, afraid, helpless, and hostile. According to Langenderfer (1999, para. 6), “They represent ways of coping with their life despite these problems called ‘neurotic trends’ (Self-Analysis, 40).” Environmental factors can contribute to neurotic behaviors; however, understanding of the inner-self by self-analyzing can help one through neurosis. Determination to change and the self-discipline of awareness can assist in self-analyzing to change neurotic behavior. The goal of Horney’s analysis is to change the neurotic perceptions and guide the individual to self-realization of his or her potential.

References

Britannica Biographies. (2011). Horney, Karen. Accession number: 324133233 Retrieved February 16, 2012 from MasterFILE Premier.

Boeree, G. (2006). Personality Theories. Retrieved February 16, 2012 from webspace.ship.edu

Langenderfer, G. (1999). Karen Horney. Retrieved February 17, 2012 from muskingum.edu

Scheer, A. (2001). Karen Horney: Her Life and Work. Retrieved February 17, 2012 from users.muohio.edu