How Did Karen Horney Contribute To Psychology
ABSTRACT
Most of us have come in contact with people who seem to successfully irritate or frighten people away with their clinginess, significant lack of self esteem, and even anger and threatening behavior.These individuals adapted this personality style through a childhood filled with anxiety. Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career.Karen Horney developed a theory of neuroses, which she defined as a manner of dealing with relationships.She identified ten categories of neurotic needs. They all include the need for compliance refers to a tendency to move towards people, manifested by a need to seek approval from others. The need for aggression refers to a tendency to go against people …show more content…
by being selfish, bossy, or demanding. The need for detachment, or a tendency to move away from people by insisting on one's self-sufficiency and insistence on perfection.
Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.
--Karen Horney
Karen Horney was born in Germany on September 16, 1885.
Karen Horney dealt with depression early in life. She described her father as a strict disciplinarian and was very close to her older brother, Berndt. When he distanced himself from her, Horney became depressed, a problem she would deal with throughout her life. Karen Horney made significant contributions to humanism, self-psychology, psychoanalysis, and feminine psychology. Horney also believed that people were able to act as their own therapists, emphasizing the personal role each person has in their own mental health and encouraging self-analysis and …show more content…
self-help.
Karen Horney developed a theory of neurosis that is still prominent today. Unlike previous theorists like Sigmund Feud and Carl Jung, Horney viewed these psychoses as a sort of coping mechanism that is a large part of normal life. Horney theorized that psychological disorders did not arise from the complex on psychosexual stages, as Freud taught. Freud believes that" instinctual drives or object relationships that are frequent in our culture are biologically determined" On the other hand, Horney believed that they derived from poor interpersonal relationships during childhood, particularly with parents. She emphasized that particular parenting styles are a great influence the child’s development of personality traits. Today, we can refer back to Horney’s theory of personality because of her emphasis on parent child interactions and the role of society and culture in shaping personality.
Horney's theory is related to her personal life and how she was able to deal with her problems. Her idea of neurosis and psychoanalysis involving inner conflicts is regarded as one of the best theories in this area. Neurosis is how people cope and have control over interpersonal issues that happen day to day according to Horney. She addresses the idea of personality in conjunction with psychoanalysis. Horney outlined her theory of neurosis, describing different types of neurotic behavior as a result of overusing coping strategies to deal with basic anxiety. These behaviors include such things as the neurotic needs for power, prestige, and affection.
Horney identified ten neuroses, the majority focusing the need for social prestige, and the need for independence. The need for affection and approval: this need includes the desires to be liked, to please other people, and meet the expectations of others. The need for a partner to take over one’s life: this is the need for love in an intimate relationship and expecting their partners to take over their lives by solving their problems. The need to restrict one’s life with narrow borders: they are undemanding and content with little and prefer to go by unnoticed. The need for power: they usually praise strength, despise weakness, and will exploit or dominate other people. The need to exploit others: these individuals pride themselves in their ability to exploit other people and are often focused on manipulating others to obtain desired objectives, including such things as ideas, power, money, or sex. The need for prestige: individuals value themselves in terms of value themselves in terms of public recognition and acclaim. The need for personal admiration: they want to be admired based on this imagined self-view, not upon how they really are. The need for personal achievement: these individuals fear failure and feel a constant need to accomplish more than other people. The need for self-sufficiency: they refuse help from others, thinking they can accomplish things by themselves. The need for perfection: searching for personal flaws in order to quickly change or cover up these perceived imperfections.
Another important part of Honey’s theory is hyper-competitiveness. Karen Horney viewed “hyper-competitiveness as a dysfunctional form of extreme competitiveness linked to neurosis and representing an indiscriminate need to win at all costs.” (John M. Houston, 2015) The opposite to "normal" competitiveness, hyper-competitiveness is associated with a discriminating self-worth shifting between underlying low self-esteem, a diminished need for others, but at the same time an interest in admiration and recognition from others.
In terms of development, Karen Horney believes that it is true that some people who are abused or neglected as children suffer from neuroses as adults. Socially anxious adults also demonstrate heightened anxiety sensitivity, which is characterized by the fear of anxiety-related sensations. Not only do individuals feel anxiety, they physically show it”. For instance, a socially anxious individual may experience physical sensations such as sweating or blushing, intensifying cognitive distortions that others are hyperaware of their somatic symptoms and therefore negatively perceive them” (Nayana, 2015) which can ultimately affect their daily lives. The feeling or anxiety, Horney believes has a lot to do with the crucial roles of parents. As guardians and the child’s person of trust, they are supposed to respond to a child's desire for care and. Second, they must to encourage a child to explore the world, developing secure attachment in the child. In contrast, lack of care and/or overprotection of parents create insecure attachment in a child. Depending on how the child is raised, once they become an adult he or she will be in constant “self-evaluation in relation to interpersonal approval and acceptance, is susceptible to events perceived as causing a loss of social acceptance or attachment”. (Koichi Otani, 2014) On the other hand, an adult who’s had a lack of nurture and security from the parents, is sensitive when it comes to events that they may perceive involve a loss of independence, control or accomplishment. Another important term in Horney’s developmental theory is parental indifference, a lack of warmth and affection in childhood. If the child feels wanted and loved, even occasional beatings or an early sexual experience can be overcome. A child’s response and emotional development will be affected by the parent’s actions. “A well-intentioned parent may easily communicate indifference to children with such things as showing a preference for one child over another, blaming a child for what they may not have done, overindulging one moment and rejecting another, neglecting to fulfill promises, disturbing a child's friendships, making fun of a child's thinking, and so on. Please notice that many parents -- even good ones -- find themselves doing these things because of the many pressures they may be under. Other parents do these things because they themselves are neurotic, and place their own needs ahead of their children's.” (Boeree, 2006)
I would like to use the character Dr.
Leonard Leakey Hofstadter, PHD from the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory to further explain Karen Horney’s theory that particular parenting styles are a great influence the child’s development of personality traits. Leonard is a physicist with an extremely high IQ and is skilled with a wide range of disciplines including history, literature and science and is able to solve a complex crossword puzzle in seconds. Throughout his interpersonal relationships Leonard often seems insecure even though he is the well-adjusted amongst his genius friends. Despite the fact he is a social leader amongst his intelligent friends, he wants to urgently establish a meaningful romantic relationship and expand his social circle. As Horney explains, he self-assess much of his self-worth into how he is perceived by others and often complains about his friends’ social deprivation, especially Sheldon’s. He has a massive collection of comic and sci-fi related items, and enjoys such pastimes as playing “Halo” and “Klingon Boggle,” he finds this embarrassing and has even considered selling off his collection simply because other men his age, besides his friends have a negative social stigma regarding video
games.
Leonard was born to a highly intelligent but unemotional family. “His mother Beverly Hofstadter is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and his father is an anthropologist. They wrote papers on their sexual relationship which was evidently limited to procreation and included Power Point presentations and also about their theories on raising children.” (Charreyre, n.d.) His mother, is not a supporter of physical contact such as hugs, kisses or praise, in fact she conducted experiments designed to stimulate Leonard’s intellectual development in a variety of fashions. She closely monitored his progress with psychological evaluations as well as frequent brain scans.
The need for affection and approval: Leonard is constantly looking for his mother’s approval. He always shares hisses at the university that he works, and shares with this with his mother. One example is a time when Leonard shared his current study on unoriginal work, and his mother didn't see the point of viewing his research since it had already been done.
The need to restrict one’s life with narrow borders: Leonard is usually mildly shy around women, but he actually cares about having a girlfriend. He is the most successful of the main four to get into relationships. Penny is a pretty girl who moved in next door to Leonard and Sheldon. Leonard immediately fell in love with her and even said “our babies will be both smart and beautiful” to which Sheldon responded, “not to mention imaginary. The reason being that Leonard has done little to court Penny because he feels insecure and not worthy of her beauty, along with not knowing how physically deal with affection.
The need for power: Leonard often avoids direct conflict, and therefore tends to internalize frustration and resentment until it overflows and explodes. This happens time and time again with both Sheldon and Penny. Leonard can tolerate a lot of demands from these two, but eventually he reaches a point where he moves into direct confrontation mode.
The need for personal admiration: Leonard’s constant attempt for his mother’s affection and admiration is ongoing because she believes that Leonard's brother and sister are more successful in their respective fields than he is, but she was not proud of them as they weren't "her" accomplishments.
The need for self-sufficiency: Leonard's occasional selfishness was when he was sleeping with Raj’s sister Prya, and didn't seem to care how Raj felt about the situation.
Parental Indifference: All the family values were extrictly focused on intellectual achievements. Only when the children achieved something was the only time they would celebrate as a family. This limited some of the more common celebrations in the household such as holidays and birthdays. Thus, Leonard had never had a birthday party even as an adult. He received very little of the affection needed by a child. When he was 10, he was so thirsty for human contact that lead him to build a robotic “hugging machine” from a dress maker’s mannequin so he could feel what it was like to have his mother hug him. According to Leonard, his father evidently shared his loneliness since he borrowed the machine.
Neurosis: This shows by insecurely tilting his head as he speaks nervously, as well as avoiding eye contact and squinting. When under great stress, his voice is elevated to a high-pitched whine or he gets sweaty. At times, Leonard's demeanor seems very low energy and somewhat irritable.
I believe that in many ways, Karen Horney was well ahead of her time and although she died before the feminist movement took hold, she was perhaps the theorist who changed the way psychology looked at gender differences and human psychological development. Horney's concept of humanity is esteemed on social factors, free choice, optimism, and unconscious influences.
Most of us have come in contact with people who seem to successfully irritate or frighten people away with their clinginess, significant lack of self esteem, and even anger and threatening behavior.These individuals adapted this personality style through a childhood filled with anxiety. Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career.Karen Horney developed a theory of neuroses, which she defined as a manner of dealing with relationships.She identified ten categories of neurotic needs. They all include the need for compliance refers to a tendency to move towards people, manifested by a need to seek approval from others. The need for aggression refers to a tendency to go against people …show more content…
by being selfish, bossy, or demanding. The need for detachment, or a tendency to move away from people by insisting on one's self-sufficiency and insistence on perfection.
Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.
--Karen Horney
Karen Horney was born in Germany on September 16, 1885.
Karen Horney dealt with depression early in life. She described her father as a strict disciplinarian and was very close to her older brother, Berndt. When he distanced himself from her, Horney became depressed, a problem she would deal with throughout her life. Karen Horney made significant contributions to humanism, self-psychology, psychoanalysis, and feminine psychology. Horney also believed that people were able to act as their own therapists, emphasizing the personal role each person has in their own mental health and encouraging self-analysis and …show more content…
self-help.
Karen Horney developed a theory of neurosis that is still prominent today. Unlike previous theorists like Sigmund Feud and Carl Jung, Horney viewed these psychoses as a sort of coping mechanism that is a large part of normal life. Horney theorized that psychological disorders did not arise from the complex on psychosexual stages, as Freud taught. Freud believes that" instinctual drives or object relationships that are frequent in our culture are biologically determined" On the other hand, Horney believed that they derived from poor interpersonal relationships during childhood, particularly with parents. She emphasized that particular parenting styles are a great influence the child’s development of personality traits. Today, we can refer back to Horney’s theory of personality because of her emphasis on parent child interactions and the role of society and culture in shaping personality.
Horney's theory is related to her personal life and how she was able to deal with her problems. Her idea of neurosis and psychoanalysis involving inner conflicts is regarded as one of the best theories in this area. Neurosis is how people cope and have control over interpersonal issues that happen day to day according to Horney. She addresses the idea of personality in conjunction with psychoanalysis. Horney outlined her theory of neurosis, describing different types of neurotic behavior as a result of overusing coping strategies to deal with basic anxiety. These behaviors include such things as the neurotic needs for power, prestige, and affection.
Horney identified ten neuroses, the majority focusing the need for social prestige, and the need for independence. The need for affection and approval: this need includes the desires to be liked, to please other people, and meet the expectations of others. The need for a partner to take over one’s life: this is the need for love in an intimate relationship and expecting their partners to take over their lives by solving their problems. The need to restrict one’s life with narrow borders: they are undemanding and content with little and prefer to go by unnoticed. The need for power: they usually praise strength, despise weakness, and will exploit or dominate other people. The need to exploit others: these individuals pride themselves in their ability to exploit other people and are often focused on manipulating others to obtain desired objectives, including such things as ideas, power, money, or sex. The need for prestige: individuals value themselves in terms of value themselves in terms of public recognition and acclaim. The need for personal admiration: they want to be admired based on this imagined self-view, not upon how they really are. The need for personal achievement: these individuals fear failure and feel a constant need to accomplish more than other people. The need for self-sufficiency: they refuse help from others, thinking they can accomplish things by themselves. The need for perfection: searching for personal flaws in order to quickly change or cover up these perceived imperfections.
Another important part of Honey’s theory is hyper-competitiveness. Karen Horney viewed “hyper-competitiveness as a dysfunctional form of extreme competitiveness linked to neurosis and representing an indiscriminate need to win at all costs.” (John M. Houston, 2015) The opposite to "normal" competitiveness, hyper-competitiveness is associated with a discriminating self-worth shifting between underlying low self-esteem, a diminished need for others, but at the same time an interest in admiration and recognition from others.
In terms of development, Karen Horney believes that it is true that some people who are abused or neglected as children suffer from neuroses as adults. Socially anxious adults also demonstrate heightened anxiety sensitivity, which is characterized by the fear of anxiety-related sensations. Not only do individuals feel anxiety, they physically show it”. For instance, a socially anxious individual may experience physical sensations such as sweating or blushing, intensifying cognitive distortions that others are hyperaware of their somatic symptoms and therefore negatively perceive them” (Nayana, 2015) which can ultimately affect their daily lives. The feeling or anxiety, Horney believes has a lot to do with the crucial roles of parents. As guardians and the child’s person of trust, they are supposed to respond to a child's desire for care and. Second, they must to encourage a child to explore the world, developing secure attachment in the child. In contrast, lack of care and/or overprotection of parents create insecure attachment in a child. Depending on how the child is raised, once they become an adult he or she will be in constant “self-evaluation in relation to interpersonal approval and acceptance, is susceptible to events perceived as causing a loss of social acceptance or attachment”. (Koichi Otani, 2014) On the other hand, an adult who’s had a lack of nurture and security from the parents, is sensitive when it comes to events that they may perceive involve a loss of independence, control or accomplishment. Another important term in Horney’s developmental theory is parental indifference, a lack of warmth and affection in childhood. If the child feels wanted and loved, even occasional beatings or an early sexual experience can be overcome. A child’s response and emotional development will be affected by the parent’s actions. “A well-intentioned parent may easily communicate indifference to children with such things as showing a preference for one child over another, blaming a child for what they may not have done, overindulging one moment and rejecting another, neglecting to fulfill promises, disturbing a child's friendships, making fun of a child's thinking, and so on. Please notice that many parents -- even good ones -- find themselves doing these things because of the many pressures they may be under. Other parents do these things because they themselves are neurotic, and place their own needs ahead of their children's.” (Boeree, 2006)
I would like to use the character Dr.
Leonard Leakey Hofstadter, PHD from the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory to further explain Karen Horney’s theory that particular parenting styles are a great influence the child’s development of personality traits. Leonard is a physicist with an extremely high IQ and is skilled with a wide range of disciplines including history, literature and science and is able to solve a complex crossword puzzle in seconds. Throughout his interpersonal relationships Leonard often seems insecure even though he is the well-adjusted amongst his genius friends. Despite the fact he is a social leader amongst his intelligent friends, he wants to urgently establish a meaningful romantic relationship and expand his social circle. As Horney explains, he self-assess much of his self-worth into how he is perceived by others and often complains about his friends’ social deprivation, especially Sheldon’s. He has a massive collection of comic and sci-fi related items, and enjoys such pastimes as playing “Halo” and “Klingon Boggle,” he finds this embarrassing and has even considered selling off his collection simply because other men his age, besides his friends have a negative social stigma regarding video
games.
Leonard was born to a highly intelligent but unemotional family. “His mother Beverly Hofstadter is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and his father is an anthropologist. They wrote papers on their sexual relationship which was evidently limited to procreation and included Power Point presentations and also about their theories on raising children.” (Charreyre, n.d.) His mother, is not a supporter of physical contact such as hugs, kisses or praise, in fact she conducted experiments designed to stimulate Leonard’s intellectual development in a variety of fashions. She closely monitored his progress with psychological evaluations as well as frequent brain scans.
The need for affection and approval: Leonard is constantly looking for his mother’s approval. He always shares hisses at the university that he works, and shares with this with his mother. One example is a time when Leonard shared his current study on unoriginal work, and his mother didn't see the point of viewing his research since it had already been done.
The need to restrict one’s life with narrow borders: Leonard is usually mildly shy around women, but he actually cares about having a girlfriend. He is the most successful of the main four to get into relationships. Penny is a pretty girl who moved in next door to Leonard and Sheldon. Leonard immediately fell in love with her and even said “our babies will be both smart and beautiful” to which Sheldon responded, “not to mention imaginary. The reason being that Leonard has done little to court Penny because he feels insecure and not worthy of her beauty, along with not knowing how physically deal with affection.
The need for power: Leonard often avoids direct conflict, and therefore tends to internalize frustration and resentment until it overflows and explodes. This happens time and time again with both Sheldon and Penny. Leonard can tolerate a lot of demands from these two, but eventually he reaches a point where he moves into direct confrontation mode.
The need for personal admiration: Leonard’s constant attempt for his mother’s affection and admiration is ongoing because she believes that Leonard's brother and sister are more successful in their respective fields than he is, but she was not proud of them as they weren't "her" accomplishments.
The need for self-sufficiency: Leonard's occasional selfishness was when he was sleeping with Raj’s sister Prya, and didn't seem to care how Raj felt about the situation.
Parental Indifference: All the family values were extrictly focused on intellectual achievements. Only when the children achieved something was the only time they would celebrate as a family. This limited some of the more common celebrations in the household such as holidays and birthdays. Thus, Leonard had never had a birthday party even as an adult. He received very little of the affection needed by a child. When he was 10, he was so thirsty for human contact that lead him to build a robotic “hugging machine” from a dress maker’s mannequin so he could feel what it was like to have his mother hug him. According to Leonard, his father evidently shared his loneliness since he borrowed the machine.
Neurosis: This shows by insecurely tilting his head as he speaks nervously, as well as avoiding eye contact and squinting. When under great stress, his voice is elevated to a high-pitched whine or he gets sweaty. At times, Leonard's demeanor seems very low energy and somewhat irritable.
I believe that in many ways, Karen Horney was well ahead of her time and although she died before the feminist movement took hold, she was perhaps the theorist who changed the way psychology looked at gender differences and human psychological development. Horney's concept of humanity is esteemed on social factors, free choice, optimism, and unconscious influences.