Karen Horney

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Karen Horney

• 1885 - 1952

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Neurotic Needs

• Affection and approval
• Partner to take over ones life
• Restrict ones life within narrow boundaries
• Power, control over others, and façade of
  omnipotence
• Exploit others and get the better of them

• Social recognition or prestige
• Personal admiration
• Personal achievement
• Self-sufficiency and independence
• Perfection and unassailability

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Neurotic Needs and Personality Disorders

• Affection and approval
• Partner to take over ones life
• Restrict ones life within narrow boundaries
• Power, control over others, and façade of
  omnipotence
• Exploit others and get the better of them

• Dependent, Histrionic, Borderline, Narcissistic
• Dependent, Borderline
• Dependent, Avoidant, Paranoid
• Antisocial, Narcissistic, Borderline, Paranoid,
  Histrionic, Obsessive Compulsive
• Antisocial, Narcissistic, Borderline

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Neurotic Needs and Personality Disorders

• Social recognition or prestige
• Personal admiration
• Personal achievement
• Self-sufficiency and independence
• Perfection and unassailability

• Narcissistic, Histrionic
• Narcissistic, Histrionic
• Antisocial, Narcissistic
• Avoidant, Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal
• Narcissistic, Borderline, Avoidant

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Karen Horney

• Born in 1885 in Hamburg, Germany
• Father was a ships captain
• Religious
• Authoritarian
• Mother was somewhat upper class comparatively

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Karen Horney

• 4 siblings from previous marriage and an older
  biological brother (darling of family)
• Felt deprived of her fathers affections and
  became her mothers little lamb
• Still felt basically unwanted and unloved
• Around age 12 developed crush on brother
• Pushed her away
• First bought of depression

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Karen Horney

• Entered medical school in 1906
• Married in 1909
• 3 daughters
• Mother died in 1910
• Began psychoanalysis
• First affair in 1911
• Need for men seemed compulsive but not all
  consuming

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Karen Horney

• 1923 Attempted to kill self by swimming out to
  sea
• Marriage failing
• Brother died
• Extreme depression

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Karen Horney

• Moved into apt. with daughters in 1926
• Moved to New York in 1930/32
• Developed theories
• Practice psychotherapy
• Wrote books
• Died in 1952

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Theory

• Have an innate drive for positive personal growth
  (self realization)
• Pathological behavior results when this is
  blocked
• Disturbed interpersonal relationships are at the
  core of all healthy and unhealthy (neurotic)
  personality functioning

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Theory

• Neurotics show patterns of extreme and inflexible
  approaches to handling interpersonal
  relationships
• the center of psychic disturbances are
  unconscious strivings developed in order to cope
  with life despite fears, helplessness, and
  isolation. I have called them neurotic trends
  neurotic needs.

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Theory

• Safety and satisfaction are the two primary needs
  
• Under ideal conditions, a child will feel loved,
  protected, and safe
• Under less than ideal conditions, a child feels
  vulnerable, helpless and abandoned producing
  basic anxiety
• the feeling a child has of being isolated and
  helpless in a potentially hostile world
• Is the result of parental indifference
• Called this the basic evil
• As much perception as intention

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Theory

• Parental indifference and the conflict it
  produces results in defensive ways of perceiving
  oneself.
• Despised real self (fallible true self)
• Repressed hostility turns toward self and further
  proves ones unworthiness and sense of being
  unlovable
• Self contemot
• Six major ways of manifestation

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Theory

• Relentless demands on self
• Tyranny of the should
• Merciless self-accusation
• Constantly berate self
• Self-contempt
• Ridicule that prevents striving for improvement
  or achievement
• Self-frustration
• Dont believe we deserve to enjoy things
• Self-torment
• Inflict harm and suffering on self
• Self-destructive actions and impulses
• Overeating, addictions, reckless behavior

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Theory

• Then create the image of the idealized or ideal
  self to defensively restructure the despised
  real self
• The drive toward actualizing the ideal self is
  called the neurotic search for glory.
• Manifests as
• Need for perfection
• Attempt to mold the whole personality into the
  idealized self
• Tyranny of the should

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Theory

• Manifests itself (cont)
• Neurotic ambition
• Compulsive drive toward superiority
• Although desire to excel at everything, often
  channeled into area most likely to succeed
• Drive toward a vindictive triumph
• its chief aim is to put others to shame or
  defeat them through ones very success or to
  attain the powerto inflict suffering on them
  mostly of a humiliating kind
• Most destructive of the three

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Theory

• Later added
• Real self
• True core of persons being
• Contains all potential of growth and health
  (possible self)
• Damaged by parental indifference
• Alienation from this and adoption of the
  idealized self is called the core neurotic
  conflict

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Theory

• Basic anxiety around parental indifference makes
  the child angry and resentful toward parents
• Called this basic hostility
• Creates conflict and anxiety for child
• Child needs parents and wants to approach them
• On the other hand hates them and wants to punish
  them
• This is the basis of neurosis

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Theory

• A child deals with this by adopting one of three
  relationship strategies
• Accentuate dependency and move toward the parents
• Accentuate hostility and move against the parents
• Give up on the relationship and move away from
  the parents
• Calls these the basic conflict

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Theory

• Moving Toward People If you love me, you will
  not hurt me
• Compliant Personality
• Intense needs for affection and approval
• Need for a partner
• Need to restrict ones life within narrow
  boundaries
• Goal is to achieve harmony with others and avoid
  friction

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Theory

• Compliant Personality
• May mask underlying feelings of need to compete,
  excel, and dominate, or feelings of rage, anger
  and hostility
• Called this the self-effacing solution
• The ideal self is the despised self
• Qualities of suffering, helplessness and martyrdom

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Theory

• Moving against people If I have power, no one
  can hurt me
• Aggressive Personality
• Need for control and power as protection against
  feelings of helplessness
• Need to excel by exploiting others
• Success and prestige are measures of their self
  worth
• Driven by insecurity, anxiety, and hostility
• Called this the expansive solution
• Ultimate attempt to actualize the ideal self

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Theory

• Moving away from people If I withdraw, nothing
  can hurt me
• Detached personality
• Detached from human affairs
• Resigned to an emotionally flat life
• Protection from being hurt by others
• Intense needs of self sufficiency and perfection

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Theory

• Detached personality
• Narrow limits of life so that will not have to be
  dependent on others
• Remove selves from inner battlefield of their
  own conflicts
• Called this the solution of resignation

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Theory

• Healthy people move between these and use what is
  appropriate when needed
• Neurotics mainly emphasize one of the Neurotic
  solutions
• Two less emphasized remain at work in the
  unconscious

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Auxiliary Conflict Solutions

• Creation of Blind Spots
• Type of denial
• Refusal to see the discrepancy between their
  behaviors and the idealized self

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Auxiliary Conflict Solutions

• Compartmentalization
• Life compartmentalized with different rules for
  each
• What happens in one has not effect or link to
  another
• Situational ethics
• Rationalization
• Using logical, plausible, but inaccurate excuses
  to justify ones perceived weaknesses, failures,
  or inconsistencies.

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Auxiliary Conflict Solutions

• Excessive self control
• Avoidance of emotions (good or bad)
• Arbitrary rightness
• Because of difficulty in taking action, will
  appear to arbitrarily make decisions (showing one
  is arbitrarily right or in charge)
• (dogmatism)

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Auxiliary Conflict Solutions

• Elusiveness
• Postpones making any decisions, voice any
  opinions, etc.
• If I am not committed to anything, I cant be
  wrong If I am not wrong I cant be criticized
• Cynicism
• Doesnt believe in anything
• By not believing in anything, I am immune to the
  disappointment of being committed to something
  shown to be false.