Psychiatrist Karen Horney was one of the main representatives of neofreudism, 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 biological 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 his studies he met Oskar Horney, whose name he adopted after she married him in 1909 and with whom he had three daughters before they divorced.

A few years after Horney was discharged his parents died and he went into a state of prolonged depression. It was then that 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 towards his father; Horney rejected his hypothesis and abandoned therapy. He would later become one of the main critics of the mainstream of psychoanalysis and its emphasis on male sexuality.

In 1915 she 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 during the following decades.

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

Neofreudism and feminist psychology

Horney and Alfred Adler are considered to be the founders of neo-freudism , a 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 aggression as determining factors in the development of personality and neuroses. This author found Freud’s and other male psychiatrists’ obsession with the penis particularly absurd.

Horney considered that “penis envy” was explained by the social inequality between genders; what women envied in men was not their sexual organ, but their social role, and the same could happen in the opposite sense. Furthermore, she considered that these roles were largely determined by culture, and not only by biological differences.

Between 1922 and 1937 Horney made various theoretical contributions to female psychology, becoming the first feminist psychiatrist . Among the subjects she wrote about, the overvaluation of the male figure, the difficulties of motherhood and the contradictions inherent in monogamy stand out.

Neurosis, real self and self-realization

According to Horney, neurosis is an alteration in a person’s relationship with himself and others. The key factor in the onset of symptoms is the way parents handle the anxiety of their child during development.

The neurotic personality or characteristic neurosis arises when parents do not provide their children with a loving and safe environment, generating feelings of isolation, helplessness and hostility. This blocks normal development and prevents the person from becoming their “real self” .

In Horney’s work, the real self is equivalent to identity. If an individual’s personal growth is healthy, his behaviors and relationships develop properly, leading to self-realization. For Horney this is a natural human tendency; later humanists like Rogers and Maslow would hold the same belief.

In contrast, the identity of neurotic people is divided between the real self and the ideal self. Since the goals of the ideal self are unrealistic, the person identifies with an undervalued image of himself, which leads him to distance himself even more from the real self. Thus, neurotics alternate between perfectionism and self-deprecation.

Neurotic Personality Types

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

1. Complacent or submissive

The characteristic neurosis of the complacent type is characterized by 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 the internal conflict is replaced by the external one. Thus, submissive neurotic people often believe that their problems could be solved by a new partner, for example.

2. Aggressive or expansive

In this case hostility prevails 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, at times, feared by their environment or by society in general.

3. Isolated and resigned

When neither submission nor aggression allow the child to capture the attention of his parents, he may develop a characteristic neurosis of an isolated type. In these people, exaggerated needs for perfectionism, independence and solitude appear, leading to a detached and shallow life.