KAREN HORNEY: PSYCHOANALAYTIC SOCIAL THEORY

BIOGRAPHY:
Karen Danielsen Horney was bornon September 15, 1885 in Eilbek, a small
town near Hamburg, Germany
Only daughter of Berndt (Wackels) Danielsen, a sea captain, and Clothilda van
Ronzelen Danielsen, a woman nearly 18 years younger than her husband.
The old sea captain (Berndt Danielsen) had been married earlier and had four
other children, most of whom were adults by the time Horney was
The Danielsen family was an unhappy one; in part because Karens older half
siblings turned their father against his second wife. Karen felt great hostility
toward her stern, devoutly religious father and regarded him as a religious
hypocrite. However, she idolized her mother, who both supported and protected
her against the stern old sea captain. Nevertheless, Karen was not a happy child.
She resented the favored treatment given to her older brother, and in addition,
she worried about the bitterness and discord between her parents.
When she was 13, Horney decided to become a physician, but at that time no
university in Germany admitted women.
By the time she was 16, this situation had changed. So Horneyover the
objections of her father, who wanted her to stay home and take care of the
householdentered the gymnasium, a school that would lead to a university and
then to medical school in her own for the first time, Karen were to remain
independent for the rest of her life.
1906 - She entered the University of Freiburg, becoming one of the first women
in Germany to study medicine. There she met Oskar Horney, a political science
student. Their relationship began as a friendship, but it eventually became a
romantic one.
1909 After the marriage, the couple settled in Berlin, where Oskar, now with a
PhD, worked for a coal company and Karen, not yet with an MD, specialized in
psychiatry.
1910 She began an analysis with Karl Abraham, one of Freuds close associates
and a man who later analyzed Melanie Klein.
1917 she had written her first paper on psychoanalysis, The Technique of
Psychoanalytic Therapy (Horney 1917/1968)
1926 Karen and Oskar separated but did not officially divorce until 1938.
1932 - Horney left Germany for a position as associate director of the new
established Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. Several factors contributed to her
decision to immigratethe anti-Jewish political climate in Germany (although
Horney was not Jewish), increasing opposition to her unorthodox views, and an
opportunity to extend her influence beyond Berlin. During the 2 years she spent in
Chicago, she met Margaret Mead, John Dollard, and many of the same scholars
who had influenced Harry Stack Sullivan
After 2 years in Chicago, Horney moved to New York, where she taught at the New
School for Social Research. While in New York, she became a member of the
Zodiac group that included Fromm, Fromm-Reichmann, Sullivan, and others.
Although Horney was a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, she
seldom agreed with the established members.
1939 her book New Ways in Psychoanalysis made her leader of an opposition
group
1941 She resigned from the institute over issues of dogma and orthodoxy and
helped form a rival organizationthe Association for the Advancement of
Psychoanalysis (AAP). This new group, however, also quickly suffered from
internal strife.
1943 - Fromm (whose intimate relationship with Horney had recently ended) and
several others resigned from the AAP, leaving that organization without its
strongest members. Despite this rift, the association continued, but under a new
namethe Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute
1950 - Horney published her most important work, Neurosis and Human Growth.
This book sets forth theories that were no longer merely a reaction to Freud but
rather were an expression of her own creative and independent thinking.

December 4, 1952 - After a short illness, Horney died of cancer on. She was 65
years old

Introduction to Psychoanalytic Social Theory

The early writings of Karen Horney, like those of Adler, Jung, and Klein,
have a distinctive Freudian flavor. Like Adler and Jung, she eventually
became disenchanted with orthodox psychoanalysis and constructed a
revisionist theory that reflected her own personal experiencesclinical
and otherwise. Although Horney wrote nearly exclusively about neuroses
and neurotic personalities, her works suggest much that is appropriate to
normal, healthy development. Culture, especially early childhood
experiences, plays a leading role in shaping human personality, either
neurotic or healthy. Horney, then, agreed with Freud that early childhood
traumas are important, but she differed from him in her insistence that
social rather than biological forces are paramount in personality
development

The Importance of Childhood Experiences

Horney believed that neurotic conflict can stem from almost any
developmental stage, but childhood is the age from which the vast
majority of problems arise. A variety of traumatic events, such as sexual
abuse, beatings, open rejection, or pervasive neglect, may leave their
impressions on a childs future development; but Horney (1937) insisted
that these debilitating experiences can almost invariably be traced to lack
of genuine warmth and affection. Horneys own lack of love from her
father and her close relationship with her mother must have had a
powerful effect on her personal development as well as on her theoretical
ideas.

THEORY OF NEUROSIS
Horney believed neurosis to be a continuous processwith neuroses
commonly occurring sporadically in one's lifetime. This was in contrast to
the opinions of her contemporaries who believed neurosis was, like more
severe mental conditions, a negative malfunction of the mind in response
to external stimuli, such as bereavement, divorce or negative experiences
during childhood and adolescence.
A neurotic person could theoretically exhibit all of these needs, though in
practice much fewer than the ten here need to be present for a person to
be considered a neurotic
NEUROSIS
Mental disorder characterized by anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy,
guilt, anger, and loneliness.
Maladaptive way of dealing with relationships.
People who have neurosis are called Neurotic - they are unhappy and
they desperately seek for relationships in order to feel good about
themselves.
Horney believed that neuroses grow out of basic conflict that usually
begins in childhood.

Parents may be dominating, overprotective, overindulgent, humiliating,

brutal, perfectionist, hypocritical, etc. that leads to: Basic Anxiety

BASIC ANXIETY

Horney believed that basic anxiety is the anxiety experienced when

adults feel hopeless, isolated, or abandoned as a result of emotionally
neglectful parents when they were growing up.

When safety and satisfaction is not felt by the child.

PROTECTIVE DEVICES

Affection
- Purchasing love
Submissiveness
- Neurotics may submit themselves either to people or to institutions
such as an organization or a religion.
- to gain affection
a. Power - a defense against the real or imagined hostility of others
and takes the form of a tendency to dominate others.
b. Prestige - protection against humiliation and is expressed as
tendency to humiliate others.
c. Possession - acts as a buffer against destitution and poverty and
manifests itself as a tendency to deprive others.
Withdrawal
- By developing independence from others or by becoming
emotionally detached from them.

COMPULSIVE DRIVES

Neurotic individuals have the same problems that affect normal people,
except neurotics experience them to a greater degree. Everyone uses the
various protective devices to guard against the rejection, hostility, and
competitiveness of others.

NEUROTIC NEEDS

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Horney noted that when young and as we develop our sense of identity,
we tend to idealize this identity, but then we realize that we are not
perfect and so start to hate ourselves.
Horney tentatively identified 10 categories of neurotic needs that
characterize neurotics in their attempts to combat basic anxiety.
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
The

neurotic
neurotic
neurotic
neurotic
neurotic
neurotic
neurotic
neurotic

need
need
need
need
need
need
need
need

for affection and approval.

for a powerful partner.
to restrict ones life within narrow borders.
for power.
to exploit others.
for social recognition or prestige
for personal admiration
for ambition and personal achievement.

9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence.

10.The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability.

NEUROTIC TRENDS
Moving Toward People

Horneys concept of moving toward people does not mean moving toward
them in the spirit of genuine love. Rather, it refers to a neurotic need to
protect oneself against feelings of helplessness.
This is a type of person who is complaint type, who says that if
I give in, I shall not be hurt.

Moving Against People

This is a hostile type of a person who thinks that if

he has power, no one can hurt him.
They are motivated by a strong need to exploit others and to use them for
their own benefit. They seldom admit their mistakes and are compulsively
driven to appear perfect, powerful, and superior.
The neurotic need of power for exploitation of others is for prestige
and for personal achievements are to
be fulfilled, when an individual moves against people.

Moving Away From People

In order to solve the basic conflict of isolation, some people behave in a

detached manner and adopt a neurotic trend of moving away from
people.
This person is a detached type, who says that if I withdraw, nothing can
hurt me.
The neurotic need for self-sufficiency, perfection, and independence are
classified.

Intrapsychic Conflicts
The Idealized Self-Image

Is an attempt to solve conflicts by painting a godlike picture of one self.

Honey believed that human beings, if given an environment of discipline
and warmth, will develop feelings of security and self-confidence and a
tendency to move toward a self realization.
Added to this failure is a growing sense of alienation from themselves.
Feeling alienated from themselves, people need desperately to acquire a
stable sense of identity.

1. The Neurotic Search for Glory

As Neurotics come to believe in the reality of their idealized self., they
begin to incorporate it into all aspects of their lives, their goals, their selfconcept, and their relations with others.
Horney (1950) referred to this comprehensive drive toward actualizing the
ideal self as the neurotic search for glory.
The need for perfection refers to the drive to mold the whole personality
into the idealized self.
They try to achieve perfection by erecting a complex set of shoulds and
should nots. Horney (1950) referred tho this drive as the tyranny of
the should.
A second key element in the neurotic search for glory is neurotic ambition,
that is, the compulsive drive toward superiority.
Drive toward a vindictive triumph, the most destructive element of all.

2. Neurotic Claims
In their search for glory, neurotics build a fantasy world, a world that is out
of sync with the real world.
Believing that something is wrong with the outside world, they proclaim
that they are special and therefore entitled to be treated in accordance
with their idealized view of themselves.
3. Neurotic Pride
The third aspect of an idealized image is neurotic pride, a false pride
based not on a realistic view of the true self but on a spurious image of
the idealized self.
Neurotic pride is qualitatively different from healthy pride or realistic selfesteem.

Self-Hatred

People with a neurotic search for glory can never be happy with
themselves because when they realize that their real self does not match
the insatiable demands of their idealized self, they will begin to hate and
despise themselves: The glorified self becomes not only a phantom to be
pursued:
It also becomes a measuring rod with which to measure his actual being.

Horney (1950) recognized 6 major ways of people express selfhatred.

Relentless demands on the self
Merciless self-accusation
Self-Contempt
Self-Frustration
Self-Torment
Self-Destructive actions and impulses
FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY
Is an approach to psychology that focuses on issues concerning
gender, female human identity, and the issues that women face
throughout their lives.

Karen Horney made to psychodynamic thought was her

disagreements with Freuds view of women.
The Male View of Women - She countered Freuds concept of penis
envy with what she called womb envy.
- men compensate for this inability by striving for success.
Masculine protest - belief that men are superior to women.
-This perception easily leads to the neurotic desire to be a man.
Gender Equality

Key Terms and Concepts

Horney insisted that social and cultural influences were more important
than biological ones.
Children who lack warmth and affection fail to meet their needs for safety
and satisfaction.
These feelings of isolation and helplessness trigger basic anxiety, or
feelings of isolation and helplessness in a potentially hostile world.
The inability of people to use different tactics in their relationships with
others generates basic conflict: that is, the incompatible tendency to
move toward, against, and away from people.
Horney called the tendencies to move toward, against, or away from
people the three neurotic trends.
Healthy people solve their basic conflict by using all three neurotic trends,
whereas neurotics compulsively adopt only one of these trends.
The three neurotic trends (moving toward, against, or away from people)
are a combination of 10 neurotic trends that Horney had earlier identified.
Both healthy and neurotic people experience intrapsychic conflicts that
have become part of their belief system. The two major intrapsychic
conflicts are the idealized self-image and self-hatred.
The idealized self-image results in neurotics attempts to build a godlike
picture of them.
Self-hatred is the tendency for neurotics to hate and despise their real self.
Any psychological differences between men and women are due to
cultural and social expectations and not to biology.
The goal of Horneyian psychotherapy is to bring about growth toward
actualization of the real self.

ERICH FROMM: HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS

BIOGRAPHY:
Like the views of all theorists, Erich Fromms view of human nature was
shaped by childhood experience
Fromm was born on March 23, 1900, in Frankfurt, Germany, the only
child of middle- class Orthodox Jewish parents. His father Naphtali
Fromm was the son of a rabbi and a grandson of two rabbis. His mother,
Rosa Krause Fromm, was the niece of Ludwig Krause, a well known
Talmudic scholar.
Fromms early childhood was less than ideal. He recalled that he had
very neurotic parents and that he was probably a rather unbearably
neurotic child. Moreover, he grew up in two very distinct worlds, one
the traditional Orthodox Jewish world, the other modern capitalist world.
This split existence created tensions that were nearly unendurable, but
it generated in Fromm a lifelong tendency to see events from more than
one perspective ( Fromm, 1986; Hausdorff 1972 )
After the war, Fromm became a socialist, although at that time, he
refused to join the Socialist Party. Instead, he concentrated on his
studies in psychology, philosophy, and sociology at the University of
Heidelberg, where he received his PhD in sociology at either age 22 or
25.
In 1926, the same year that he repudiated Orthodox Judaism, Fromm
married Frieda Reichmann, his analyst, who was more than 10 years his
senior.
In 1930, Fromm and several others founded the South German Institute
for Psychoanalysis in Frankfurt, but with the Nazi threat becoming more
intense, he soon moved to Switzerland where he joined the newly
founded International Institute of Social Research in Geneva.

In both Chicago and New York, Fromm renewed his acquaintance with
Karen Horney, whom he had known casually at the Berlin Psychoanalytic
Institute. Horney, who was 15 years older than Fromm, eventually
became a strong mother figure and mentor to him (Knapp, 1989).
In 1944, Fromm married Henny Gurland, a woman two years younger
than Fromm and whose interest in religion and mystical thought
furthered Fromms own inclinations toward Zen Buddhism
In both Chicago and New York, Fromm renewed his acquaintance with
Karen Horney, whom he had known casually at the Berlin Psychoanalytic
Institute. Horney, who was 15 years older than Fromm, eventually
became a strong mother figure and mentor to him (Knapp, 1989).
In 1944, Fromm married Henny Gurland, a woman two years younger
than Fromm and whose interest in religion and mystical thought
furthered Fromms own inclinations toward Zen Buddhism
While in Mexico, he met Annis Freeman, whom he married in 1953. In
1968, Fromm suffered a serious heart attack and was forced to slow
down his busy schedule. In 1974 and still ill, he and his wife moved to
Muralto, Switzerland, where he died March 18, 1980, a few days short of
his 80th birthday.

Fromms Basic Assumptions

Fromms most basic assumption is that individual personality can be
understood only in the light of human history. The discussion of the human
situation must precede that of personality, psychology must be based on an
anthropologic philosophical concept of human existence.
Fromm believed that humans, unlike other animals, have been torn
away from their prehistoric union with nature. They have no powerful
instincts to adapt changing world; instead they have acquired the facility to
reason a condition Fromm called the human dilemma.
The first and most fundamental dichotomy is that between life and death.
A second existential is that humans are capable of conceptualizing the
goal of complete self realization, but we also are aware that life is too
short reach that goal.
The third existential dichotomy is that people are ultimately alone, yet
we cannot tolerate isolation.

Human Needs
As animals, humans are motivated by such physiological needs as
hunger, sex, and safety; but they can never resolve their human dilemma by
satisfying these animal needs. These existential needs have emerged
during the evolution of human culture, growing out of their attempts to find
an answer to their existence and to avoid becoming insane. Indeed, Fromm
contented that one important difference between mentally healthy
individuals and neurotic or insane ones is that healthy people find answers
to their existence- answers that more completely correspond to their total
human needs
Relatedness
The first human need is relatedness, the drive for union with another
person or other person. Fromm postulated three basic ways in which a
person may relate to the world:
1. Submission 2. Power
3. Love
Transcendence

Define as the urge to rise above a passive and accidental existence into
the realm of purposefulness and freedom. Just as relatedness can be
pursued through either positive or negative approaches.
Rootedness
The need to establish roots or to feel at home again in the world.
It can also be seen phylogenetically in the evolution of the human
Species.
Fromm agreed with Freud that incestuous desires are universal, but he
disagreed with Freuds beliefs that are essentially sexual.
According to Fromm, incestuous feelings are based in the deep- seated
craving to remain in, or to return to, the all enveloping womb or to the
all- nourishing breasts.
Sense of Identity
The capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity.
Fromm believed that primitive people identified more closely with their
clan and did not see themselves as individuals existing apart from their
group.
In agreement with Marx, Fromm believed that the rise of capitalism has
given people more economic and political freedom.
Frame of Orientation
Enables people to organize the various stimuli that impinge on them.
People who possess a solid frame of orientation can make sense of these
vents and phenomena, but those who lack a reliable frame of orientation
will, nevertheless, strive to put these vents into some sort of framework
in order to make sense of them.

Summary of Human Needs

People are motivated by five distinctively human needs:
Relatedness
Transcendence
Rootedness
A sense of identity
Frame of orientation
The Burden of Freedom
The central thesis of Fromms writings is that humans have been torn
from nature, yet they remain part of the natural world, subject to the
same physical limitations as other animals.
Mechanisms of Escape
Because basic anxiety produces a frightening sense of isolation
and aloneness, people attempt to flee from freedom through a variety of
escape mechanisms. In Escape from Freedom, Fromm (1941) identified
three primary mechanisms of escape
authoritarianism, destructiveness, and conformity.

1. Authoritarianism
Fromm (1941) defined authoritarianisms the tendency to give up
the independence of ones own individual self and to fuse ones self with
somebody or something outside oneself, in order to acquire the strength
which the individual is lacking
2.

Destructiveness
Like authoritarianism, destructiveness is rooted in the feelings of
aloneness, isolation, and powerlessness. Unlike sadism and masochism,

however, destructiveness does not depend on a continuous relationship

with another person; rather, it seeks to do away with other people.
3. Conformity
A third means of escape is conformity. People who conform try to
escape from a sense of aloneness and isolation by giving up their
individuality and becoming whatever other people desire them to be.
Thus, they become like robots, reacting predictably and mechanically to
the whims of others. They seldom express their own opinion, cling to
expected standards of behavior, and often appear stiff and automated.
4. Positive Freedom
The emergence of political and economic freedom does not
lead inevitably to the bondage of isolation and powerlessness. A person
can be free and not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts,
independent and yet an integral part of mankind (Fromm, 1941). People
can attain this kind of freedom, called positive freedom.

CHARACTER ORIENTATIONS

In Fromms theory, personality is reflected in ones character

orientation, that is, a persons relatively permanent way of relating to
people and things. Fromm (1947) defined personality as the totality of
inherited and acquired psychic qualities which are characteristic of one
individual and which make the individual unique
Nonproductive Orientations
People can acquire things through any one of four nonproductive
orientations: (1) receiving things passively, (2) exploiting, or taking
things through force, (3) hoarding objects, and (4) marketing or
exchanging things.
Receptive
Receptive characters feel that the source of all good lies outside
themselves and that the only way they can relate to the world is to
receive things, including love, knowledge, and material possessions.
Exploitative
Like receptive people, exploitative characters believe that the
source of all good is outside themselves.
Hoarding
Rather than valuing things outside themselves, hoarding characters
seek to save that which they have already obtained. They hold
everything inside and do not let go of anything.
Marketing
The marketing character is an outgrowth of modern commerce in
which trade is no longer personal but carried out by large, faceless
corporations. Marketing, or exchanging, personalities must see
themselves as being in constant demand; they must make others
believe that they are skillful and salable.

The Productive Orientation

The single productive orientation has three dimensionsworking, loving,

and reasoning. Because productive people work toward positive freedom

and a continuing realization of their potential, they are the healthiest of

all character types.
Healthy people value work not as an end in itself, but as a means of
creative self expression
Productive love is characterized by the four qualities of love discussed
earliercare, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.
Productive thinking, which cannot be separated from productive work
and love, is motivated by a concerned interest in another person or
object.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

PERSONALITY DISORDERS

Three

If healthy people are able to work, love, and think productively, then
unhealthy personalities are marked by problems in these three areas,
especially failure to love productively.
severe personality disorders
Necrophilia
Malignant Narcissism
Incestuous Symbiosis

1. Necrophilia
The term necrophilia means love of death and usually refers to
a sexual perversion in which a person desires sexual contact with
a corpse. However, Fromm used necrophilia in a more generalized
sense to denote any attraction to death. Necrophilia is an
alternative character orientation to biophilia. People naturally
love life, but when social conditions stunt biophilia, they may
adopt a necrophilic orientation.

Necrophilic personalities hate humanity; they are racists,

warmongers, and bullies; they love bloodshed, destruction, terror,
and torture; and they delight in destroying life.

2. Malignant Narcissism
Just as all people display some necrophilic behavior, so too do all
have some narcissistic tendencies. Healthy people manifest a
benign form of narcissism, that is, an interest in their own body.
However, in its malignant form, narcissism impedes the perception
of reality so that everything belonging to a narcissistic person is
highly valued and everything belonging to another is devalued.
Narcissistic individuals are preoccupied with themselves, but this
concern is not limited to admiring themselves in a mirror.
Preoccupation with ones body often leads to hypochondriasis, or
an obsessive attention to ones health. Fromm also discussed
moral hypochondriasis, or a preoccupation with guilt about
previous transgressions. People who are fixated on themselves
are likely to internalize experiences and to dwell on both physical
health and moral virtues.
Narcissistic people possess what Horney called neurotic claims.
3. Incestuous Symbiosis
An extreme dependence on the mother or mother surrogate.
Incestuous symbiosis is an exaggerated form of the more common
and more benign mother fixation. Men with a mother fixation need
a woman to care for them, dote on them, and admire them; they
feel somewhat anxious and depressed when their needs are not

fulfilled. This condition is relatively normal and does not greatly

interfere with their daily life.
People living in incestuous symbiotic relationships feel extremely
anxious and frightened if that relationship is threatened. They
believe that they cannot live without their mother substitute.

Key Terms and Concepts

People have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature and
also with one another, yet they have the power of reasoning, foresight, and
imagination.
Self-awareness contributes to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and
homelessness.
To escape these feelings, people strive to become united with others and
with nature.
Only the uniquely human needs of relatedness, transcendence,
rootedness, sense of identity, and a frame of orientation can move people
toward a reunion with the natural world.
A sense of relatedness drives people to unite with another person through
submission, power, or love.
Transcendence is the need for people to rise above their passive existence
and create or destroy life.
Rootedness is the need for a consistent structure in peoples lives.
A sense of identity gives a person a feeling of I or me.
A frame of orientation is a consistent way of looking at the world.
Basic anxiety is a sense of being alone in the world.
To relieve basic anxiety, people use various mechanisms of escape,
especially authoritarianism, destructiveness, and conformity.
Psychologically healthy people acquire the syndrome of growth, which
includes (1) positive freedom, or the spontaneous activity of a whole,
integrated personality; (2) biophilia, or a passionate love of life; and (3)
love for fellow humans.
Other people, however, live nonproductively and acquire things through
passively receiving things, exploiting others, hoarding things, and
marketing or exchanging things, including themselves.
Some extremely sick people are motivated by the syndrome of decay,
which includes (1) necrophilia, or the love of death; (2) malignant
narcissism, or infatuation with self; and (3) incestuous symbiosis, or the
tendency to remain bound to a mothering person or her equivalents.
The goal of Fromms psychotherapy is to establish a union with patients so
that they can become reunited with the world.