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Subject PSYCHOLOGY
Paper No and Title Paper No. 5: Personality Theories
Module No and Title Module No. 12: Psychoanalytic Social Theory: Karen
Horney
Module Tag PSY_P5_M12
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
3. Biographical Sketch
4. Horney’s Psychological Works
4.1 Basic Anxiety and Basic Hostility
4.2 Neurotic Needs
4.3 Three Solutions: Neurotic Trends
4.4 Self Theory
4.5 Self Analysis
5. Evaluative Comments
6. Summary
PSYCHOLOGY Paper No. 5: Personality Theories
Module No. 12: Psychoanalytic Social Theory: Karen Horney
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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to:
Know about Karen Horney’s life
Learn the path-breaking theories proposed by Horney
Evaluate Horney’s theory and treatment practices
Analyze the relevance of the theory in present time
2. Introduction
The psychoanalytic social theory of Karen Horney stressed the importance of social and cultural
influences on personality development and neurosis. Horney insisted that each culture generates a
unique set of problems and fears in its members that create feelings of insecurity. In addition,
there are conflicts generated by an individual’s distinctive social or interpersonal conditions.
Normal person is able to adjust to these hostile conditions and to make the best use of what the
culture has to offer. The neurotic, in contrast, uses defenses rigidly and indiscriminately to reduce
his or her fears and finds it difficult to adjust and feel safe in a threatening social environment.
Like traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, Horney firmly believed that the unconscious
intrapsychic conflicts in the childhood are a powerful determinant of personality. However, she
questioned Freud’s emphasis on sexual impulses. According to Horney, the most important
conflicts are based on the needs for security and love. Children who do not receive genuine love
and affection experience basic anxiety and develop neurotic trends or rigid behavioral patterns to
cope with interpersonal issues that eventually contribute to maladjusted functioning.
Horney is credited with founding feminist psychology. She disagreed with Freud about inherent
differences between the development men and women, and argued that such differences can be
traced to cultural and social forces rather than biological factors.
Horney’s psychotherapeutic strategies are based on the belief that people are driven by
constructive forces and the goal of therapy is to help them move toward a realization of their true
self through a process of self-analysis.
Although Horney’s work focuses primarily on the neurotic personality, many of her ideas can
also be applied to normal individuals. We shall try and look at Horney’s theory of neurotic needs
and trends, briefly discuss her ideas on psychotherapy and examine her views on feminine
psychology.
3. Biographical Sketch
Karen Horney was born near Hamburg, Germany to Berndt Wackels Danielsen And Clotilde
Danielsen on September 16, 1885. As a child, she felt both loved and intimated by her father who
was a religious fundamentalist and believed that women were inferior to men. At age 13, she
decided to become a doctor, which was strongly opposed by this father. However, her mother was
th
encouraging and supported her to pursue what seemed a very unrealistic goal in the late 19
century.
PSYCHOLOGY Paper No. 5: Personality Theories
Module No. 12: Psychoanalytic Social Theory: Karen Horney
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
She joined medical school in 1906 and became one of the first women to enter German
University. There, she met Oscar Horney and the two married in 1909. She experienced a lot of
turbulence in her marriage for which she sought psychoanalysis by Freud’s disciple, Karl
Abraham. However, she felt disappointed with the results of psychoanalysis and participated in
several informal sessions with Karl Abraham, critically discussing psychoanalytic concepts and
practices. This led to the establishment of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, where she actively
worked for several years.
In 1932, Horney went to the United States, where she became associate director of the Chicago
Psychoanalytic Institute. Two years later, she moved to New York and taught at the New York
Psychoanalytic Institute. However, her critiques of Freud continued from Germany to the US.
This created an uproar that forced her to resign from the New York Psychoanalytic Society in
1941. Shortly after- wards, she helped found the American Institute for Psychoanalysis and the
Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Horney died of cancer on December 4,
1952.
4. Horney’s Psychological Works
4.1 Basic anxiety and basic hostility
Horney (1937) believed that our childhood is governed by the need for safety. For healthy
development, a child must feel secure in a warm and loving relationship with the parents.
Unfortunately, when parents are unable or unwilling to provide warmth, love and affection to the
child, they weaken the child’s sense of safety and security.
Parents may act in various ways to undermine their child’s security with such behaviors as:
Unfair punishment
Erratic behaviour
Lack of warmth
Overindulgence or rejection
Indifference to child’s needs
Direct or indirect dominance
Isolation from peers
Preference for siblings
Ridicule and humiliation
PSYCHOLOGY Paper No. 5: Personality Theories
Module No. 12: Psychoanalytic Social Theory: Karen Horney
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Horney termed these parental behaviours as the basic evil. The
basic evil naturally instigates feelings of resentment and anger,
a response termed as basic hostility. However, children rarely express this hostility, because they
feel dependent and helpless, are fearful of intimidation or punishment by their parents, are fearful
of losing love and security, and are guilty about harboring resentment toward their parents. Hence
this hostility toward one’s parents is repressed and is manifested in feelings of insecurity,
helplessness, vulnerability and apprehension. This condition is called basic anxiety, and is
defined as an “insidiously increasing, all-pervading feeling of being lonely and helpless in a
hostile world” (Horney, 1937, p. 89). In Horney’s words, we feel “small, insignificant, helpless,
deserted, endangered, in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate, betray” (1937, p.
92).
Basic anxiety is persistent and relentless, permeates all relationships with others, motivates
people to seek safety and reassurance rather than happiness, and leads to maladaptive ways of
coping.
4.2 Neurotic needs
Horney is known for her study of neurotic personality. She defined neurosis as a maladaptive and
counterproductive attempt to cope with feelings of hostility, insecurity and helplessness that
accompany basic anxiety. She insisted that neurotics use defensive strategies to protect
themselves against basic anxiety resulting in rigid, compulsive, behaviours that further aggravate
it.
Since Horney’s idea of neurosis involves dealing with the problem, she presented ten needs that
are acquired to find solutions to combat basic anxiety. She called these 10 categories of needs
“neurotic” since they are irrational, compulsive, rigid and used indiscriminately to reestablish the
safety of the environment:
Need for acceptance and affection: It includes the desire to be liked, to please others, and
meet other’s expectations. Such individuals are very sensitive to criticism and fear the
rejection and hostility of others.
Need for an intimate partner who will take over one’s life: It includes the idea that love
will untangle all the complex knots of our lives. A neurotic needs a partner to fall
dependent on and let the partner take charge of the relationship.
Need to restrict one’s life with self-made boundaries: This involves being undemanding,
satisfied with little and need to be inconspicuous. It goes to the extreme that the neurotic
does not want to see the world outside of his constricted view and struggles in new
situations. Also they make their own needs secondary and undervalue their own potential.
Need for power and control: It is the need for dominance for its own sake often
accompanied by contempt for the weak. Such individuals fear personal limitations,
helplessness and uncontrollable situations.
Need to manipulate and exploit others: Such individuals pride themselves in their ability
to manipulate others for some desired objective like money, power or sex.
PSYCHOLOGY Paper No. 5: Personality Theories
Module No. 12: Psychoanalytic Social Theory: Karen Horney
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