K. Horney's personality theory
Karen Horney is a famous American psychologist who has made a huge contribution to the development of psychology.
She studied the influence of cultural and social aspects on personality development. The basis of her work was the principles of Freud's theory. However, she rejected Freud's opinion about the peculiarities of psychological differences between women and men, as well as the theory of instincts. She developed her theory of personality, which is known as the sociocultural theory of personality. Experience with European and American patients allowed Karen Horney to identify differences in the personal development of people from different countries. This confirmed that sociocultural factors have a great influence on the dynamics of development and functioning of individuals. In addition, Karen Horney's social circle consisted of a large number of famous and eminent psychological scientists. They also affirmed this influence, which led to Karen Horney's position on social and cultural factors being strengthened.
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Scientific works
In conclusion, Karen Horney's significant work, which has received universal recognition, should be noted. This includes atypical research collections: “Neurosis and personal growth. The struggle for self-realization”, “Our internal conflicts. Constructive theory of neurosis". Neo-Freudian views are well reflected in the books: “New Paths in Psychoanalysis”, “Psychology of Women”, “Neurotic Personality of Our Time”. A woman reveals all facets of personality theory in an accessible and easy-to-understand language.
Karen Horney summarized that the main goal of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis is not only to study theory, but also to provide effective help to the person. Helping an individual find the levers and main facets of self-knowledge, expand his own perception and eliminate the formation of uncertainty, isolation or any type of aggression is the main task of a real psychoanalyst. The simple conclusion turned out to be a new and fresh view in the 20th century, which significantly influenced the development of psychoanalysis as a whole.
Personal Development by Karen Horney
Karen Horney emphasized the influence of a child's experiences on the formation of a person's personality. There is a common feature here with Freud's position. She placed the social relationship between the child and his parents as the main factor in personality development, while Freud singled out the sexual anatomy of the child and psychosexual stages.
According to Karen Horney, in childhood a person needs to satisfy the needs for safety and love. The child strives to be loved and desired, as he feels the need for security from an external hostile environment. The child's parents play a key role here. If they can show love towards their child, then this increases the likelihood of the child developing a healthy personality. If parents do not satisfy this need, then pathologies of the child’s personality development may occur.
Karen Horney noted the formation of a basal hostility attitude in a child who experiences the results of parental abuse. It represents the conflicting feelings of a child towards his parents, when he is dependent on them, and at the same time resentful and offended. As a rule, the child’s defense mechanisms are activated here. He is forced to suppress negative feelings towards his parents in order to survive. This suppression may manifest itself in the present or future in the child’s relationships with other people.
Finished works on a similar topic
Coursework Theory of personality by K. Horney: its pros and cons 440 ₽ Abstract Theory of personality by K. Horney: its pros and cons 270 ₽ Examination Theory of personality by K. Horney: its pros and cons 250 ₽
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Horney uses the term "basic anxiety" in this case, which is a lack of feeling of security. Thus, all parental actions that lead to a decrease in the child’s sense of security are the basis for the formation of basal anxiety. It follows that the prerequisites for the formation of nervousness in adults lie in childhood and are determined by their relationships with their parents.
Brief biography and stages of personality formation
Karen Horney (Danielsen) was born on September 16, 1885 near Hamburg, Germany. She grew up in a complete family, taking on perseverance and courage from her father, and kindness, love and care from her mother. The young lady's father was deeply convinced of the high status of men, their moral and mental superiority over women. This was explained by the significant difference in the age of the girl’s parents (almost 18 years) and old trends of the nineteenth century. At the same time, Karen's mother was not only attractive, but also a well-educated, well-read woman.
According to Horney herself, she was not particularly beautiful, both in childhood and in her early youth. Having matured, she analyzed her own feelings and experiences. In one of the interviews, the woman spoke about the unbearable feeling of inferiority that haunted her from an early age. To compensate for this, Karen devoted herself entirely to science.
The desire to become a doctor appeared at the age of 14, and after seven years she was able to enter the University of Freiburg (1906), where she received permission to work in the field of medicine. This was an unusual permit - the first official license in Germany, allowing a female person to get a job in a medical institution and practice. In 1910, the young girl met her first love, Oscar Horney, who was a lawyer by profession. Soon they got married and began to live together.
Karen graduated from the university in 1915 and continued her career as a psychoanalyst at the Berlin Institute. Beginning from this period, Karen Horney suffered from deep depression, bouts of aggression and a sharp loss of strength appeared. With the growth of psychological problems and misunderstandings, the marriage with Oscar Horney gradually collapsed (divorce in 1927). There was a moment in a woman’s life when she tried to commit suicide, but her husband was nearby.
Family problems worsened with the death of Karen's brother and the loss of both parents. All this left an indelible impression on the young woman. After the divorce, Karen's life changed dramatically, as she had a lot of free time to study and study the features of psychoanalysis. She was active in teaching at the University of Berlin, wrote scientific papers and was completely absorbed in what she loved.
The woman was noticed and offered a permanent job in the USA. Without thinking for a minute, she packed up and left for Chicago (1932). Karen began teaching at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, then moved to New York, where she took a job at the Psychoanalytic Institute and part-time at the New School for Social Research.
Neurotic needs and types of people orientation
To combat feelings of basal anxiety, the child uses certain protective strategies. Karen Horney has identified ten defensive strategies called neurotic needs or tendencies. Let's look at them in more detail:
- Excessive need for love and approval. Represents the individual's desire to be loved by others. Such people perceive criticism, rejection and unfriendliness negatively and painfully;
- Excessive need for a leadership partner. Manifests itself as fear of loneliness or rejection, dependence on others, overestimation of love;
- Excessive need for clear boundaries. Expressed in the special meaning of restrictions and order, subordination and undemandingness;
- Excessive need for power. Represents the desire for dominance and control, contempt for weaknesses;
- Excessive need to exploit others. Manifests itself as a fear of appearing stupid or being used by others;
- Excessive need for social recognition. Expressed in the desire to be an object of admiration for others, self-esteem depends on social status;
- Excessive need for self-admiration. Represents the need for flattery and compliments from others, the desire to create an ideal image of oneself;
- Excessive need for ambition. Manifests itself in the desire to be better than others, fear of defeat or failure;
- Excessive need for self-sufficiency and independence. Expressed in maintaining a distance from others, fear of relationships with obligations;
- Excessive need for perfection and irrefutability. Manifests itself in creating an image of impeccable virtue.
According to Horney, these needs are common to all people. However, she noted that neurotics, unlike healthy people, become fixated on one of the above needs and try to satisfy it in all areas of social life.
In addition, Karen Horney identified three types of personality orientation towards other people: compliant, detached and hostile. They are necessary to reduce feelings of anxiety and achieve a sense of security. The compliant type is characterized by dependence, indecision and helplessness. Often this type suppresses the rage and anger that arises. The isolated type manifests itself in the presence of a feeling of detachment, a desire for privacy and independence. The hostile type is characterized by the fact that it strives for control, dominance and exploitation.
It should be noted that a healthy person can change these strategies depending on the situation that arises. Neurotics are not able to approach this issue correctly; they are characterized by a lesser degree of flexibility, which contributes to difficulties in solving life problems.
About the authors.
Robert Frager
(Robert Frager) received his PhD in social psychology from Harvard University, where he taught and was an assistant to Erik Erikson. He has taught psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz and is the founder and first president of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He also served as president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. The author of several books and numerous articles on psychology and related fields, he is currently director of the doctoral program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California.
“I have been fortunate to collaborate with many of the leading theorists and therapists whose work is highlighted in this book, and I have myself practiced Jungian analysis, Gestalt therapy, Reichian and neo-Reichian therapy, and Rogers group work. Additionally, I have lived in Zen monasteries, yogi ashrams, and Sufi centers, studying and practicing these traditions.
In addition to psychology, I teach the Japanese martial art of Aikido, which I have been practicing for over thirty years. He studied with the founder of the Aikido school. He was the first in a line of amazing mentors who taught me what Maslow called “expanding the limits of human nature.” I also lecture on Sufism and have recently completed a collection of Sufi stories, teachings and poems called Essential Sufism
(“The Essence of Sufism”).
I am married to an amazing, creatively gifted artist; We have four children who are now 27, 24, 13 and 10 years old."
James Fadiman
James Fadiman received his PhD in psychology from Stanford University and has taught at the University of San Francisco, Brandeis University, and Stanford. He has his own consulting firm that conducts seminars for executives and educators in the United States and abroad. He has written and edited a number of books on holistic medicine, goal setting, and pathopsychology, is the editor of two journals, and is a board member of several conservation corporations.
“I have been fortunate to be able to apply the psychological and clinical skills I acquired in graduate school to a variety of fields outside of psychology. Although I spent several years working at the college level and continue to teach psychology, most of my time was spent consulting with academics and business people. My early studies of altered states of consciousness allowed me to discover the hidden wisdom of indigenous and eastern cultures. I was delighted to discover that ancient wisdom can be extremely practical.
What inspired me in writing this book was that it gave me the opportunity to bring together different points of view that I found useful, even if the originators of those ideas were bitter opponents.
I'm currently running a creative problem solving and invention course at a large electronics firm in Silicon Valley, starting a second novel, continuing to write a number of short stories, and collaborating with several environmentally friendly start-up companies. production facilities.
My wife, to whom I have been married for thirty years, is a documentary filmmaker. We have two kids."
Theory of neuroses
Karen Horney's theory of neurosis is one of the most famous theories in this area of psychology. Horney believed that interpersonal relationships create basic anxiety, and neurosis is a kind of defense mechanism to cope with it. The psychologist divided neurotic needs into three large groups, and therefore three types of neurotic personality are distinguished - helpless, aggressive and isolated .
A balanced and well-adapted person successfully uses all three lines of behavior. A person becomes neurotic if one of them dominates.
Addiction
Neurosis of this type forces a person to constantly strive for the help and approval of others, confirmation by other people of his own rightness; only in this case does he feel valuable and significant. Such people need to be liked by others, to feel their sympathy, as a result of which they often become overly intrusive and emotionally dependent.
Power and control
Striving for high self-esteem, people try to reduce feelings of anxiety by imposing their power and trying to strictly control others. People with these needs appear to others as unkind, selfish, power-hungry, and control-obsessed. Horney argued that people project their hostility onto others through a mental process the psychologist called externalization, and then make excuses for their violent behavior.
