Karen Horney and her theory of the neurotic personality

Horney was one of the first representatives of neo-Freudianism and feminist psychology.

Psychiatrist Karen Horney was one of the main representatives of neo-Freudianism, a movement that challenged the conventions of traditional psychoanalysis and allowed this theoretical orientation to expand, especially in the field of neurosis.

Horney was also the first woman psychiatrist to publish essays on women's mental health and to question the biologistic approaches to gender differences of her predecessors, and is therefore considered the founder of feminist psychology.

Biography of Karen Horney

Karen Danielsen was born in Germany in 1885. She studied medicine at the universities of Freiburg, Göttingen and Berlin, which had only recently accepted women, and graduated in 1913. During her studies she met Oskar Horney, whose surname she adopted after marrying him in 1909 and with whom she had three daughters before they divorced.

A few years after Horney graduated her parents died and she entered a state of prolonged depression. It was then that she began training as a psychoanalyst while undergoing therapy with Karl Abraham, a pioneer of psychoanalysis whom Freud said was his best student.

Abraham attributed Horney's symptoms to the repression of incestuous desires toward her father; Horney rejected his hypothesis and left therapy. She would later become a leading critic of mainstream psychoanalysis and its emphasis on male sexuality.

In 1915 was appointed secretary of the German Psychoanalytic Association, founded by Abraham himself, which laid the foundations for the teaching of psychoanalysis that would take place over the following decades.founded by Abraham himself, which laid the foundations for the teaching of psychoanalysis that would take place during the following decades.

Horney moved to the United States with her daughters in 1932 because of the rise of Nazism and the rejection she suffered from Freud and his followers. There she became acquainted with and and worked with other prominent psychoanalysts such as Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan. and Harry Stack Sullivan. He devoted himself to therapy, training and the development of his theory until 1952, the year of his death.

Neo-Freudianism and feminist psychology.

It is considered that Horney and Alfred Adler are the founders of neofreudisma current of psychoanalysis that emerged as a reaction to some of Freud's postulates and facilitated alternative developments.

In particular, Horney rejected the emphasis of early psychoanalysis on sexuality and aggressiveness as determining factors in the development of personality and in the development of neuroses. She found the obsession of Freud and other male psychiatrists with the penis particularly absurd.

Horney considered that penis envy" could be explained by the social inequality between the sexes; what women between genders; what women envied in men was not their sexual organ, but their social role, and the same could happen in the opposite direction. Furthermore, she considered that these roles were determined to a large extent by culture, and not only by Biological differences.

Between 1922 and 1937 Horney made several theoretical contributions on feminine psychology, becoming the first feminist psychiatrist in the field of psychiatry. the first feminist psychiatrist. Among the topics she wrote about were the overvaluation of the male figure, the difficulties of motherhood and the contradictions inherent in monogamy.

Neurosis, real self and self-realization

According to Horney, neurosis is a disturbance in a person's relationship with himself and with others. The key factor in the appearance of the symptoms is the way in which the parents handle the child's anxiety during development. anxiety during the child's development.

Neurotic personality or character neurosis arises when parents do not provide their children with a loving and secure environment, generating feelings of isolation, helplessness and hostility. This blocks normal development and prevents the person from becoming his or her "real self"..

In Horney's work, the real self is equivalent to identity. If an individual's personal growth is healthy, his or her behaviors and relationships develop appropriately, leading to self-actualization. For Horney this is a natural human tendency; later humanists such as Rogers and Maslow would hold the same belief.

On the other hand, the identity of neurotic persons is divided between the real self and the ideal self. between the real self and the ideal self. As the goals of the ideal self are unrealistic, the person identifies with a belittled image of him/herself, which leads him/her to distance him/herself even further from the real self. Thus, neurotics alternate between perfectionism and self-deprecation.

Neurotic personality types

Horney's theory of neurosis describes three types of neurotic personality, or neurotic tendencies. These are divided according to the means used by the person to seek security, and are consolidated by the reinforcements he/she obtained from his/her environment during childhood.

1. Complacent or submissive

Characteristic neurosis of the complacent type is characterized by the search for approval and affection. the search for the approval and affection of others.. It appears as a consequence of continuous feelings of helplessness, neglect and abandonment in early development.

In these cases the self is annulled as a source of security and reinforcement, and internal conflict is replaced by external conflict. Thus, submissive neurotic persons often believe that their problems could be solved by a new partner, for example.

2. Aggressive or expansive

In this case hostility predominates in the relationship with the parents.. According to Horney, expansive neurotics express their sense of identity by dominating and exploiting others. They tend to be selfish, distant and ambitious people who seek to be known, admired and sometimes feared by their environment or by society in general.

3. Isolated and resigned

When neither submission nor aggressiveness allow the child to capture the attention of his parents, he may develop a characterological neurosis of the isolated type. In these persons appear needs of perfectionism, independence and loneliness. perfectionism, independence and solitude and solitude that lead to a detached and shallow life.