Karen Horney (; ; ; 16 September 1885 – 4 December 1952) was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, specifically in theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. Horney is also credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud's theory of penis envy. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women, and like Alfred Adler, she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology.
Theoretical orientation Those in The Cultural School of thought include Horney, Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Clara Thompson.
Horney is often classified as neo-Freudian but may also be seen as neo-Adlerian (Ansbacher, 1979), although it is contended neither Horney nor Adler directly influenced one another (Mosak, 1989).
Early life Horney was born Karen Danielsen on 16 September 1885 in Blankenese, Germany, near Hamburg. Her father, Berndt Wackels Danielsen (1836–1910), was Norwegian but had German citizenship. He was a ship's captain in the merchant marine, and a Protestant traditionalist (his children nicknamed him "the Bible-thrower", as he did indeed throw Bibles).
Her mother, Clotilde, née van Ronzelen (1853–1911), known as "Sonni", was also Protestant, of Dutch origin. She was said to be more open-minded than Berndt, and yet she was "depressed, irritable, and domineering toward Karen".Marcia Westcott, The feminist legacy of Karen Horney, New Haven, Conn. 1986, pp. 7–8.
Karen's elder brother was also named Berndt, and Karen cared for him deeply. She also had four elder half-siblingsParis, Karen Horney: a psychoanalyst's search.Quinn, Mind of her own.Rubins, Karen Horney: gentle rebel. from her father's previous marriage. However, there was no contact between the children of her father's two marriages.
Horney kept diaries beginning at the age of thirteen. These journals showed Horney's confidence in her path for the future. She considered becoming a doctor, even though, at that time, women were not allowed to attend universities.Eckardt, M.H.(2006) Karen Horney: a portrait. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2, 105. According to Horney's adolescent diaries her father was "a cruel disciplinary figure," who also held his son Berndt in higher regard than Karen. Instead of being offended or feeling indignation over Karen's perceptions of him, her father brought her gifts from far-away countries. Despite this, Karen always felt deprived of her father's affection and instead became attached to her mother.
From roughly the age of nine, Karen became ambitious and somewhat rebellious. Contrary to the way others viewed her, she felt she could not become pretty, and instead decided to vest her energies into her intellectual qualities. At this time she developed a crush on her older brother, who became embarrassed by her attentions—soon pushing her away. She suffered the first of several bouts of depression—an issue that would plague her for the rest of her life.
In 1904, when Karen was 19, her mother left her father (without divorcing him), taking the children with her.
Education
Horney's mother and brother encouraged her academic and career goals; she completed the Realgymnasium in Hamburg and entered medical school in 1906 at the University of Freiburg, one of the first institutions in Germany to enroll women in medical courses. Higher education only became available to women in Germany in 1900. By 1908, Horney had transferred to the University of Göttingen, then to the University of Berlin before graduating with an M.D. in 1911.
Through her fellow student Carl Müller-Braunschweig—who later became a psychoanalyst—she met the business student Oskar Horney. They married in 1909. The couple moved to Berlin together, where Oskar worked in industry while Karen continued her studies at the Charité. In the same year, Karen gave birth to her first child and lost both of her parents. She entered psychoanalysis to help herself cope. Horney completed 500 hours of treatment with her first analyst, Karl Abraham, in 1910, then she moved to Hanns Sachs."Karen Horney", Feministvoices.com
From 1923 to 1935, Horney published thirteen major papers grounded in feminine psychology, developing the idea of secondary penis envy; she emphasized the way young girls are treated by their parents over Freud’s sole focus on the father. She proposed that women feel inferior due to the societal devaluation of femininity, including the mother-daughter relationship, rather than a biological desire alone. After moving to New York in 1934, Horney continued to write, taught technique courses, treated clients privately, and served as a psychiatrist for the United Jewish Aid Society. In addition to her books, Horney also hosted symposia to promote the idea that human nature is capable of change, supported by morals and constructive forces at play.
Career and works
In 1920, Horney was a founding member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. She then took up a teaching position within the Institute. She helped design and eventually directed the Society's training program, taught students, and conducted psychoanalytic research. She also saw patients for private psychoanalytic sessions, and continued to work at the hospital.
By 1923, Oskar Horney's firm became insolvent, and Oskar developed meningitis soon after. He rapidly became embittered, morose and argumentative. That same year, Horney's brother died of a pulmonary infection. Both events contributed to a worsening of Horney's mental health. She entered into a second period of deep depression; she swam out to sea during a vacation and considered committing suicide.
In 1926, Horney and her husband separated; they would divorce in 1937. She and their three daughters moved out of Oskar's house. Oskar had proven to be very similar to Horney's father, with an authoritarian personality. After studying more psychoanalytic theory, Horney regretted not objecting to her husband ruling over their children when they were younger.
Despite her increasing deviation from orthodox Freudian doctrine, she practised and taught at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Society until 1932. Freud's increasing coolness toward her and her concern over the rise of Nazism in Germany motivated her to accept an invitation by Franz Alexander to become his assistant at the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis, and in 1932, she and her daughters moved to the United States.
Two years after moving to Chicago, Horney relocated to Brooklyn. Brooklyn was home to a large Jewish community, including a growing number of refugees from Nazi Germany, and psychoanalysis thrived there. It was in Brooklyn Horney became friends with analysts such as Harry Stack Sullivan and Erich Fromm. She had a sexual relationship with Fromm that ended bitterly.
While living in Brooklyn, Horney taught and trained psychoanalysts in New York City, working both at the New School for Social Research and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
It was in Brooklyn Horney developed and advanced her composite theories regarding neurosis and personality, based on experiences gained from working in psychotherapy. In 1937 she published The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, which had wide popular readership. Horney left the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1941 and founded the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis; she became Dean of the American Institute of Psychoanalysis, a training institute for those who were interested in Horney's organization. She founded this organization after becoming dissatisfied with the generally strict, orthodox nature of the prevailing psychoanalytic community.
Horney's deviation from Freudian psychology led to her resigning from her post, and she soon took up teaching in the New York Medical College. She also founded a journal, the American Journal of Psychoanalysis. She taught at the New York Medical College and continued practicing as a psychiatrist until her death in 1952.
Narcissism Horney saw narcissism quite differently from Freud, Kohut, and other mainstream psychoanalytic theorists in that she did not posit a primary narcissism but saw the narcissistic personality as the product of a certain kind of early environment acting on a certain kind of temperament. For her, narcissistic needs and tendencies are not inherent in human nature.
Narcissism is different from Horney's other major defensive strategies or solutions in that it is not compensatory. Self-idealization is compensatory in her theory, but it differs from narcissism. All the defensive strategies involve self-idealization, but in the narcissistic solution, it tends to be the product of indulgence rather than deprivation. The narcissist's self-esteem is not strong, however, because it is not based on genuine accomplishments.Paris, Bernard J, Personality and Personal Growth, edited by Robert Frager and James Fadiman, 1998
Neo-psychoanalytic theories
Mosak (1989) states that while there is no direct evidence Alfred Adler and Horney influenced one another, they landed at similar theoretical understandings.
While Horney acknowledged and agreed with Freud on many issues, she was also critical of him on several key beliefs.
Like others whose views differed from that of Freud, Horney felt sex and aggression were not the primary factors that shape personality. Horney, along with Adler, believed there were greater influences on personality, including social relationship factors during childhood, rather than just repressed sexual passions. The two focused more on how the conscious mind plays a role in human personality, not just subconscious repression.Myers, Psychology 10th edition Freud's notion of "penis envy" was particularly subject to criticism, as well.Paris, Karen Horney: a psychoanalyst's search. Chapter 10. The masculinity complex She thought Freud had merely stumbled upon women's jealousy of men's generic power in the world. Horney accepted penis envy might occur occasionally in neurotic women, but stated that "womb envy" occurs just as much in men: Horney felt men were envious of a woman's ability to bear children. The degree to which men are driven to success may be merely a substitute for the fact they cannot carry, bear, and nurture children. Horney also thought men were envious of women because they fulfill their position in society by simply "being", whereas men achieve their manhood according to their ability to provide and succeed.
Horney was bewildered by psychiatrists' tendency to place so much emphasis on the penis. She also reworked the Freudian Oedipal complex of the sexual elements, claiming the clinging to one parent and jealousy of the other was simply the result of anxiety, caused by a disturbance in the parent-child relationship.
Despite these variances with the prevalent Freudian view, Horney strove to reformulate Freudian thought, presenting a holistic, humanistic view of the individual psyche which placed much emphasis on cultural and social differences worldwide.
Feminine psychology
Horney was also a pioneer in the discipline of feminine psychiatry.Paris, Karen Horney: a psychoanalyst's search. Part 2. The Freudian phase and feminine psychology.Marcia Westcott, The feminist legacy of Karen Horney, New Haven, Conn. 1986. As one of the first female psychiatrists, she was the first known woman to present a paper regarding feminine psychiatry. Fourteen of the papers she wrote between 1922 and 1937 were amalgamated into a single volume titled Feminine Psychology (1967). As a woman, she felt the mapping out of trends in female behaviour was a neglected issue. Women were regarded as objects of charm and beauty—at variance with every human being's ultimate purpose of self-actualization.