Horney, Karen (Danielsen)

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HORNEY, Karen (Danielsen)

Born 16 September 1885, Hamburg, Germany; died 4 December 1952, New York, New York

Daughter of Berndt and Clothilde Danielsen; married Oscar Horney, 1909 (divorced 1939); children: three daughters

Karen Horney developed an early interest in foreign peoples, their cultures and customs, when in her teens she made several ocean voyages with her father, a devoutly religious Norwegian sea captain. Because of his long absences, however, it was Horney's free-thinking Dutch mother who exerted the stronger influence and encouraged her to attend medical school at a time when professions were virtually closed to women. Horney received her medical degree from the University of Berlin in 1913. She married a Berlin lawyer, with whom she had three daughters before conflicting interests and her growing dedication to psychoanalysis resulted in separation in 1926 and divorce in 1939.

After teaching for 12 years at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, Horney emigrated to the U.S. in 1932 and became a citizen in 1938. Horney codirected the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis (1932-34), taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute (1934-41), helped found the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, served on the teaching staff at the New School for Social Research, lectured at the New York Medical College, and was founding editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis.

Horney's most significant works include The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937), which stresses the impact of culture and environment on character development. New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939) clarifies Horney's position in relation to Freud. Our Inner Conflicts (1945) emphasizes the interpersonal dynamics of neuroses. Neurosis and Human Growth (1950), the most comprehensive explication of Horney's mature ideas, focuses on the intrapsychic dynamics of neuroses.

Horney's break from Freud marks the beginning of her important contribution to the development of both psychological theory and therapy. It was triggered by her repudiation of Freud's instinctivistic and male-oriented psychology. In a reversal of Freud's concepts, Horney contends that neuroses may originate in adulthood as well as in childhood, that they are not an outgrowth of normal processes but a perversion of them, and that the dynamics of male and female neuroses are identical.

Horney's theory postulates a "real self" is the central motivating force of the psyche. It generates a "morality of evolution" whereby "man, by his very nature…strives toward self-realization, and…his set of values evolves from such striving." It is the "blockage" of the real self Horney considers the first move toward neurosis.

A "disturbance in one's relation to self and to others," neurosis results from a lack of love, security, belonging, and self-esteem. In an attempt to allay anxiety and cope with life, the individual develops a pseudo-"solution." This solution generates a complex system of defense mechanisms and a unique worldview with a corresponding system of values, needs, and taboos. The three types of solutions include the self-effacing solution, which puts a premium on love, the expansive solution, which exalts mastery, and the resigned solution, which idealizes detachment. Every neurosis incorporates all three solutions; but for the sake of inner harmony, the individual makes one solution predominant and represses the others.

One of the most important functions of the solution is its compensation for a lack of healthy self-esteem by creating an "idealized image" in which the individual takes an unhealthy pride. Indeed, one makes an unconscious "bargain with fate" by which all wishes will be fulfilled and pride reinforced if one can become the idealized self. Thus, one abandons the real self and begins to develop in self-alienated ways in the course of this search for glory.

Far from solving problems, however, the solution generates a host of difficulties on both intrapsychic and interpersonal levels. Problems arise on an intrapsychic level because the needs of the solution are compulsive and take on the authority of "shoulds" that produce self-hate if the individual fails to live up to them. Since the standards of the idealized self are superhuman, self-hate is inevitable. It is exacerbated, moreover, when circumstances bring the repressed solutions to the surface. Since the three solutions are incompatible, the surfacing of a repressed tendency involves the individual in a conflict by which the fulfillment of one set of needs violates a contradictory set. Instead of becoming the idealized self, the individual is forced by self-hate to identify with its counterpart—the despised self.

Interpersonal problems are caused by the individual's distorted view of others, seen according to the individual's needs. Lacking self-esteem, the neurotic's false pride depends totally upon the opinions of others. To avoid inner conflict, "shoulds" are externalized and become "claims" on others. To allay self-hate, the neurotic projects it either directly in the form of vengeance or passively by seeing himself or herself as victimized. In all these ways, the neurotic's vulnerability, dependency, and hostility are augmented.

Ultimately, the neurotic solution does not provide salvation but becomes a monster by which the individual is enslaved to inner dictates, snarled in unreconcilable conflicts, and tormented with self-hate. Horney compares the neurotic's bargain with fate to "a pact with the devil, who promises him glory" but makes him "go to hell—to the hell within himself." In spite of this "great tragedy," Horney's theory is optimistic. It is possible to free the real self from its crippling shackles, to recover the individual's actual capabilities, and to revive spontaneous wishes and wholeheartedness so that once again one can head in the right direction on the road to self-realization.

Not only is Horney's work notable for its description and etiology of neuroses and for its advancement toward a theory of healthy self-actualization, but it is also notable for the great strides it has made in feminine psychology. It has contributed to the liberation of woman from the image of virgin/mother/goddess and to the recovery of her humanity, together with the challenge to develop her "human" potentialities for strength, creativity, and growth.

On the basis of Horney's great achievements and the future possibilities offered by her work, she not only holds a place of distinction in American psychology—to which the Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute in New York City stands as testimony—but she also claims an international reputation, as indicated by the translation of her books into 13 languages.

Although she is a scientist, Horney also made an impact on the world of literature. Her style blends the imaginative ideas, easy flow of language, and intriguing sense of humor that lend it the beauty of art with the precision, documentation, and explication that give it the authority of science. In addition to the pleasure and self-understanding to be derived from Horney's work, it is an invaluable tool to the student of literature. Because it deals with enduring elements in human experience, Horney's theory is congruent with a great many characters from Western literature of many periods and cultures. By providing a means to explain the conflicts, inconsistencies, and contradictions of these characters, it can lead to a deeper understanding of complex characterization than criticism has hitherto afforded.

Horney's work holds open the doors to the self, to others, and to literature. Through these doors can be found a fuller life of one's own and a place in the human struggle for communication, understanding, and empathy that will make life richer for everyone.

Other Works:

Self-Analysis (1942). Feminine Psychology (1964).

Bibliography:

Alexander, F. A. et al., eds., Psychoanalytic Pioneers (1966). Kelman, H., Helping People: Karen Horney's Psychoanalytic Approach (1971). Paris, B. J., A Psychological Approach to Fiction (1974). Rubins, J. L., Developments in Horney Psychoanalysis (1972). Rubins, J. L., Karen Horney: Gentle Rebel of Psychoanalysis (1978).