Theories of Personality: Karen Horney

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

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