Key concepts of Karen Horney

Theory of neurosis

Karen Horney believed that childhood perceptions of society (mainly the parents) where key when it came to developmental psychology. She brought us the idea of neurotic needs accompanying everyday life and looked at neurosis with a more casual view. The indifferent feelings that parents can inflict upon their children due to their own neurotic tendencies are at the root of the neurotic tendencies in those adults later in life. She brings to us the unhealthy “cycle” that families can harbor if they do not give self-examination an effort. She believes that children should be allowed to be themselves, but have caring but firm parents. Those parents should ideally attempt to acknowledge their own scarring from their childhoods in order to better serve their offspring. Also, children need to learn to see value in themselves so they are able to trust that the world around them will see them as valuable as well. We’ve all had that moment when suddenly we realize we sound just like our own parents when disciplining, hopefully most of us at this point are capable of taking a step back and re-evaluating what aspects of what we were taught are important to instill in our kids, and what unhealthy aspects can stand to be left behind. These techniques can latter help him become a mentally healthy adult and ultimately help him reach self-actualization. Where this healthy atmosphere can go wrong, is when said parents are either negligent to the child’s needs for approval, manipulative with their conditional love, lacking in an interest in the child, overly critical, or untrustworthy. All these conditions, in Horney’s opinion can cause neurotic tendencies to three extremes. They may develop a tendency to “move toward” or become compliant to the dissatisfactory atmosphere, “move against” or overly assertive to the point that they dismiss emotion altogether, or even “detached” when they retreat within themselves to avoid any interaction and