Karen Horney occupys an important place in psychology and psychological thought. She was dedicated to psychology and the admirable thirst for knowledge. She followed the psychoanalyst school of thought and was instrumental in the creation of the psychological field as it stands today. As one of the first female psychiatrists, Horney was a pioneer for feminine psychology.
Karen Horney was born on September 15, 1885, outside Hamburg, Germany, as the youngest of two children (International Karen Horney Society, 2002). Horney struggled with depression from the age of nine and maintained throughout her life that her father was a strict disciplinarian who favored her brother over her. She was ambitious and rebellious but did well in school (Webster, 2009). Three years after she was accepted into college, Horney married Oskar Horney. In 1910, she gave birth to her first daughter; a year later her mother died. Horney gave birth to her second and third daughters in 1913 and 1916 respectively and turned to Freudian analysis as an aid through her difficult times. In 1900, when Germany officially allowed admittance to women into university, Horney applied for medical school at the University of Freiburg. She transferred to the University of Gottingen alongside her husband and graduated from the University of Berlin in 1913 with a medical degree. Horney began her psychological career at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Berlin and would later become the Associate Director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, teach at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and establish the American Institute for Psychoanalysis.
[...] Webster(2001) states, the first woman to present a paper on feminine psychology at an international meeting, Karen Horney pioneered and developed a feminine psychology that provided a new way of thinking about women.” Horney proved that culture and society taught and encouraged dependency on men in her paper Problem of Feminine Masochism”. Horney wrote 14 papers between 1922 and 1937 in which she explored the female trends and attitudes such as a woman's value, the relationships between husband and wife, marriage, problems within a marriage, and problems that are associated with adolescents. [...]
[...] Paris (1998) states, “Although a reviewer described New Ways in Psychoanalysis as fourteen-round ring battle between the 'new ways (Horney) and the 'old ways' (Freud), Horney acknowledged that she was deeply indebted to Freud, who had provided the foundation for all subsequent psychoanalyic thought.” Karen Horney had interesting ideas regarding an individual's self. She believed that the self is the core of an individual or their potential. She believed that if an individual had a correct concept of self, they were able to realize their potential and would be capable of attaining self- actualization in their life. [...]
[...] Horney felt that while compliance and aggression do not solve the problem of parental indifference, the child would simply become self-sufficient in order to survive mentally. The individuals with this form of coping strategy disregard others, preferring to be alone and independent. Horney felt that while these defensive strategies allow the individual to survive in their world, the strategies are doomed to fail because they create a “vicious circle” in which the means used to relieve the anxiety will eventually or immediately increase it. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
