Biography

• 1885 - 1952

• Born near Hamburg, Germany

• Encouraged to study medicine by her mother

• Received her degree from University of Berlin

• Experienced challenges of having a career and children

• Moved to US in 1932

Neopsychoanalytic

• Reaction to Freud

• Humans motivated by need for security and love, not by sex and aggression

• Influence of gender experience

• More emphasis on social factors in influencing personality

• Level of warmth can affect personality

Safety Need

• Social forces in childhood, not biological forces influence personality

• No universal stages of development

• Childhood is dominated by need for security and freedom from fear

  • Parents foster security by treating the child with warmth and affection

  • Normality of personality development direct function of level of warmth and affection received by parents

Basic Anxiety

• Pervasive feeling of loneliness and helplessness

• Foundation of neurosis

• 4 ways we protect ourselves in childhood from basic anxiety:

  • Securing love and affection

  • Being submissive

  • Attaining power

  • Withdrawing

Neurotic Needs

• Irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part of personality and that affect behavior

• Encompass the 4 ways of protecting ourselves against anxiety

• 10 Neurotic Needs

  • Affection and approval (gaining affection)

  • A dominant partner (submissive)

  • Power (attaining power)

  • Exploitation (attaining power)

  • Prestige (attaining power)

  • Admiration (attaining power)

  • achievement/ambition (attaining power)

  • Self-sufficiency (withdrawing)

  • Perfection (withdrawing)

  • Narrow limits to life (withdrawing)

• 3 categories of behaviors and attitudes toward oneself and others that express a person’s needs

• Neurotic persons are compelled to act based on one of the neurotic trends:

  • Movement toward others (compliant personality)

    • Primary Modes of Relating to Others

      • Moving toward (compliance): accepting one’s helplessness and becoming compliant

    • Basic Orientations toward Life

      • Self-effacing solution: an appeal to be loved

    • Neurotic Trends

      • Exaggerated need for affection and approval

      • Need for a dominant power

  • Movement against others (aggressive personality)

    • Primary Modes of Relating to Others

      • Moving against (hostility): rebelling and resisting others to protect one’s self from a threatening environment

    • Basic Orientations toward Life

      • Self-expansive solution: a striving for mastery

    • Neurotic Trends

      • Exaggerated need for power

      • Need to exploit others

      • Exaggerated need for social recognition/prestige

      • Exaggerated need for personal admiration

      • Exaggerated ambition for personal achievement

  • Movement away from others (detached personality)

    • Primary Modes of Relating to Others

      • Moving away (detachment): isolating one’s self to avoid involvement with others

    • Basic Orientations toward Life

      • Resignation solution: a desire to be free of others

    • Neurotic Trends

      • Need to restrict one’s self within narrow boundaries

      • Exaggerated need for self-sufficiency and independence

      • Need for perfection and unassailability

Idealized Self-Image

• Normal People

  • Built on flexible, realistic, assessment of one’s abilities

• Neurotic People

  • Inflexible, unrealistic, self-appraisal

• Tyranny of the Shoulds

  • Used by neurotics to attain the idealized self

  • Deny true self and behave in terms of what we think we should be doing

• Externalization

  • Reduce conflict caused by discrepancy between ideal and actual self

Feminine Psychology

• Psychological theory that focuses on women’s experiences

• Womb Envy

  • Women have a superior role in sexual life due to ability to bear and nurse children; men experience intense envy

  • Impressive achievements of men in creative fields may be seen as compensations for inability to bear children

Criticisms of Horney

• Theory of personality not as well constructed as Freudian theory

• Ignores roles of Sociology and Anthropology in influencing personality

• Observations too influenced by middle class America

Contributions of Horney

• Contribution to Feminist Psychology

• Influence on Erikson and Maslow

• More optimistic view of personality than Freud

• Accounts for social factors in shaping personality