Table of Contents
Neurosis and Human Growth
For Karen Horney, as for Jung and Adler, scientific debate involved some painful moments of professional rejection. Horney’s time of trial occurred in 1941, when it became apparent that her approach to psychoanalysis deviated significantly from the traditional Freudian concepts being taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. A vociferous staff meeting ensued, culminating in a vote tantamount to her dismissal. (See Rubins, 1978, pp. 239–240.) In the dead silence of an unforgettably dramatic moment, she arose and slowly walked out with her head held high—and went on to establish her own important theory, one that combines an Adlerian emphasis on social factors and an optimistic view of human nature with the intrapsychic conflict model that Adler specifically rejected.
OBJECTIVES
-
To devise a theory that retains Freud’s emphasis on the unconscious but stresses the social determinants of personality, notably the child’s relationship with the parents, rather than instincts.
-
To dispense with Freud’s controversial (and unmeasurable) construct of libido.
-
To correct Freud’s pessimistic view of human nature by arguing that our inner potentials are entirely healthy.
-
To show that Adler was wrong about personality being a unified whole and Freud was right: Personality often becomes a house divided against itself, torn by conflicting wishes and goals.
-
To explain such intrapsychic conflicts without dividing personality into separate parts like id, ego, and superego.
-
To show that psychopathology involves the compulsive need to be protected, to dominate others, or to be alone (“neurotic solutions”), severe intrapsychic conflicts, and intense anxiety and self-hate.
-
To explain why the neurotic isn’t satisfied with even significant achievements and compulsively strives for more.
-
To correct Freud’s errors about female sexuality.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Karen Danielsen Horney (pronounced “horn-eye”) was born in a small village (Blankenese) near Hamburg, Germany, on September 16, 1885. Her father was a tall, dashing sea captain whose male chauvinistic views frequently clashed with those of her proud, intelligent, and beautiful mother. Her family also included an older brother, several stepsisters and stepbrothers from her father’s two other marriages, and a warm and loving stepgrandmother. (See Kelman, 1967; Rubins, 1978.)
Karen was an excellent student throughout her academic career, and received her medical doctorate degree from the University of Berlin in 1915. She underwent psychoanalytic training, joined the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in 1918, and began her own private practice one year later. However, she ultimately split with Freudian circles over the issue of female sexuality. Karen married Oskar Horney, a businessman, on October 31, 1909. The union produced three daughters; but a near-fatal bout with meningitis and the runaway postwar inflation in Germany left the formerly successful Oskar bankrupt and withdrawn. The Horneys separated during the 1920s, and were formally divorced in 1939.
Like Freud, Horney has been described as complicated and multifaceted: strong and weak, empathic and aloof, motherly and uncaring, dominating and self-effacing, fair and petty. She was a private person who confided primarily in a diary until her early twenties, kept much of herself hidden from public view, and formed few intimate relationships. Yet she also possessed an evident charisma, capable of captivating individuals and large audiences alike. Interestingly, Horney’s own behavior included all three of the neurotic solutions that form the cornerstone of her theory: the need to merge with another person and surrender to a passionate relationship with a man (moving toward people), the need to control such wishes so that she could remain independent and have power over herself and others (moving against people), and occasional desires to resign from the world during difficult periods in her life by becoming listless and aloof (moving away from people). (See McAdams, 1993, pp. 211–221; Quinn, 1988; Rubins, 1978, pp. xii–xiv, 1–4, 239, 302, 338.)
Horney emigrated from Berlin to Chicago in 1932, and joined the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1934. However, the differences between her theoretical views and those of orthodox psychoanalysis soon led to acrimonious disputes. Her students’ final theses were summarily rejected by the institute because they did not conform sufficiently to standard doctrine, and she suffered the aforementioned fate of being formally disqualified as an instructor and training analyst in 1941. Horney thereupon resigned from the New York Psychoanalytic Society and founded her own American Institute for Psychoanalysis, whose members for a time included Fromm and Sullivan. (They, too, ultimately resigned to pursue their own theoretical predilections.) From then on her writings (in all, six books) were destined to be stubbornly ignored by strict Freudians, while gaining widespread recognition and acclaim elsewhere. Karen Horney died in New York of cancer on December 4, 1952.
THE BASIC NATURE OF HUMAN BEINGS
Horney agrees with Adler that our inherent nature is constructive. We strive to develop our healthy potentialities, and pathological behavior occurs only if this innate force toward positive growth (self- realization) is blocked by external, social forces:
Freud’s pessimism as regards neuroses and their treatment arose from the depths of his disbelief in human goodness and human growth. Man, he postulated, is doomed to suffer or to destroy. The instincts which drive him can only be controlled, or at best “sublimated.” My own belief is that man has the capacity as well as the desire to develop his potentialities and become a decent human being, and that these deteriorate
if his relationship to others and hence to himself is, and continues to be, disturbed. (Horney, 1945, p. 19. See also Horney, 1942, p. 175.)
THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
Horney shares Freud’s views about the importance of unconscious processes, including powerful and actively maintained repressions. Thus she emphatically rejects Adler’s holistic approach. “[Neurotics are] torn by inner conflicts.… Every neurotic … is at war with himself” (Horney, 1945, p. 11; 1950, p. 112; see also Horney, 1939, pp. 20–22; 1945, p. 56).
However, Horney has little to say about the structure and development of personality. “I do not con- sider it feasible to localize neurotic conflicts in a schematic way, as Freud does” (Horney, 1939, p. 191). She prefers to devote the majority of her writings to three major applications: neurosis, psychotherapy, and female sexuality.
FURTHER APPLICATIONS OF HORNEYAN THEORY
Neurosis
Horney agrees with Freud, Jung, and Adler that neurosis differs from more normal behavior in degree, rather than in kind. Life is difficult, and all of us experience conflicts at one time or another. However, there are striking differences between healthy conflicts and neurotic conflicts. Healthy conflicts may be entirely conscious and can usually be resolved, as when you must choose between going to a party and studying for the next day’s exam. Neurotic conflicts are considerably more severe, involve a dilemma that appears to be insoluble, and are always deeply repressed, so that “only slight bubbles of the battle raging within reach the surface” (Horney, 1945, p. 30. See also Horney, 1945, p. 27; 1950, p. 37).
Basic Anxiety. Horney argues that neurosis results from disturbed interpersonal relationships during childhood, rather than from some instinctual or libidinal drive. The parents may behave in such pathogenic ways as domination, overprotectiveness, overindulgence, humiliation, perfectionism, hypocrisy, inconsistency, partiality to other siblings, blind adoration, or neglect:
[These errors] all boil down to the fact that the people in the environment are too wrapped up in their own neuroses to be able to love the child, or even to conceive of him as the particular individual he is; their attitudes toward him are determined by their own neurotic needs and responses.… As a result, the child does not develop a feeling of belonging, of “we,” but instead a profound insecurity and vague apprehensiveness, for which I use the term basic anxiety. (Horney, 1950, p. 18; see also Horney, 1945, p. 41; 1950, pp. 202, 221–222, 275.)
This feeling of being alone in an unfriendly and frightening world (basic anxiety) prevents the child from relating to people in a normal way. “His first attempts to relate himself to others are determined not by his real feelings, but by strategic necessities. He cannot simply like or dislike, trust or distrust, express his wishes or protest against those of others, but [must] devise ways to cope with people and to manipulate them with minimum damage to himself” (Horney, 1945, p. 219).
To alleviate the painful feelings of anxiety, the child abandons the healthy drive for self-realization in favor of an all-out quest for safety. The child seeks safety by exaggerating one of the three main characteristics of basic anxiety: helplessness, aggressiveness, or detachment. The neurotic solution of helplessness is denoted by excessive desires for protection (moving toward people), the aggressive orientation leads to attempts at domination and mastery (moving against people), and the detached solution emphasizes the avoidance of others (moving away from people).
Each of these three neurotic solutions is compulsive and inflexible. Unlike the healthy individual, who can move toward, against, or away from people as circumstances dictate, the neurotic rarely deviates from the chosen orientation. At times, however, exceptions do occur. The two orientations that are consciously underemphasized remain powerful in the unconscious, and they occasionally break through to influence overt behavior.
Moving Toward People. The neurotic who moves toward people tries to reduce anxiety and gain safety by being cared for and protected. The sufferer acts as though others “must love me, protect me, forgive me, not desert me because I am so weak and helpless.” This feeling of “poor little me” is rather like “Cinderella bereft of her fairy godmother” (Horney, 1945, p. 53; see also Horney, 1945, pp. 48–62; 1950, pp. 214–258).
Such individuals consciously believe that they are sincerely interested in other people and want to be helpful and compliant. They are unaware that they are repressing powerful hostility, selfishness, and healthy self-assertiveness. “Where [this] patient errs is in claiming that all his frantic beating about for affection and approval is genuine, while in reality the genuine portion is heavily overshadowed by his insatiable urge to feel safe.… [The patient who moves toward people has strongly repressed a] callous lack of interest in others, attitudes of defiance, … [the desire] to control and manipulate others, [and] relentless needs to excel or to enjoy vindictive triumphs” (Horney, 1945, pp. 51, 55).
Moving Against People. The neurotic who moves against people regards life as a Darwinian jungle where only the fittest survive, and tries to reduce anxiety and gain safety through mastery and domination. Like the neglected child in Adlerian theory, the sufferer regards most people as potential enemies. “Any situation or relationship is looked at from the standpoint of ‘what can I get out of it?’… To [this individual] ruthlessness is strength, [a] lack of consideration for others [is] honesty, and a callous pursuit of one’s own ends [is] realism” (Horney, 1945, pp. 65, 68; see also Horney, 1945, pp. 63–72; 1950, pp. 187–213).
Such individuals consciously believe that they are strong and dominating. They are unaware that they are repressing powerful feelings of helplessness and a healthy need for love, and they may behave sadistically toward those who are weak because this serves as an unpleasant reminder of what they most dislike about themselves. Horney (1945, pp. 115–130) refers to this as the externalization of unconscious material, a construct that is similar to Freudian and Jungian projection (and one that occurs in all forms of neurosis).
Moving Away From People. The neurotic who moves away from people tries to reduce anxiety and gain safety by avoiding contact with others. “He is like a person in a hotel room who rarely removes the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign from his door” (Horney, 1945, p. 76; see also Horney, 1945, pp. 73–95; 1950, pp. 259–290).
Such individuals consciously believe that they are completely self-sufficient, and that no other person or thing is indispensable. They sustain this belief by unconsciously limiting their needs, numbing their emotions, and overestimating their uniqueness and superiority. They rarely ask for help, even if this means not getting what they want. And they are likely to regard the need to give a birthday gift or be on time for an appointment, the physical pressure of a tight collar or necktie, or the slightest possibility of an emotional attachment to another person as an unwarranted and hostile intrusion from the outside world. They do not realize that no person is an island, and that they are repressing powerful wishes to be dependent and healthy desires for affiliation and love.
The Idealized Image. The repressed aspects of the neurotic’s personality and the painful inner conflicts are further concealed through the development of a glorious idealized image (Horney, 1945, pp. 96–114, 139; 1950, pp. 22–23, 86–109). A compliant neurotic may believe that she is so unselfish and attractive as to deserve undying love. An aggressive neurotic may think that he always knows best and never makes a mistake. Or a detached neurotic who actually craves affection may believe that she is so capable and self-sufficient as never to need anything from anyone.
Despite its implausible aspects, the idealized image appears quite realistic to its creator. The result is a vicious circle. The idealized image establishes unattainable standards that either bring about eventual defeat, or cause the sufferer to shrink from the acid test of reality. Such failures increase the hate for and alienation from the fallible true self (self-contempt), and this intensifies the inner conflicts and the dependence on the idealized image. (See Figure 5.1.) As this image becomes increasingly unrealistic, the individual feels compelled to bolster it with still greater triumphs (glory). (See Horney, 1945, p. 98; 1950, pp. 39, 118, 154–155, 367.)
Like Faust, neurotics “sell their soul to the devil” by abandoning their real desires in favor of the idealized image. And like Frankenstein, their creation arises to destroy them. For the battle between the pathological idealized image and the healthy but apparently weak and humiliating real self proves to be the most serious inner conflict of all:
The idealized image bears some similarity to the Adlerian superiority complex, since both conceal feelings of weakness from oneself. But the grandiose idealized image is at war with the fallible real self, which differs sharply from Adler’s holistic and unified conception of personality. “It was Adler’s great contribution to realize the importance for neuroses of drives for power and superiority. Adler, however … stayed too much on the surface of the problems involved.… [And] is in fact a good example of how even a productive insight into psychological processes can become sterile if pursued onesidedly and without foundation in the basic discoveries of Freud” (Horney, 1950, p. 372; 1937, p. x; see also Horney, 1937, pp. 186–187; 1939, p. 268).
Claims and Shoulds. The idealized image often converts wishes into unrealistic claims, which supposedly entitle the sufferer to triumph and glory. A lonely individual who unconsciously feels unlovable may make no effort to alleviate this painful situation, and expect to be invited out by someone else. A neurotic with repressed feelings of professional incompetence may claim to deserve a better job without earning it, or even asking for it. Or patients may expect great gains from psychotherapy without having to work at their problems (Horney, 1950, pp. 40–63).
The neurotic is also driven by self-imposed inner commands that are designed to satisfy the idealized image, which Horney calls “the tyranny of the should.” This may involve the belief that one should be world famous, totally unselfish, always right, always victorious, a perfect lover or spouse, and so forth. Shoulds may be externalized and appear (incorrectly) to be imposed by other people, such as one’s parents or boss. Unlike the Freudian superego, shoulds are always a neurotic force “exactly like political tyranny in a police state” (Horney, 1950, p. 67; see also pp. 64–85, 123).
Other Neurotic Symptoms. Because the sufferer is pulled in opposite directions by the painful inner conflicts, he or she is likely to behave in ways that are inconsistent and indecisive. A neurotic who moves toward people may occasionally express her healthy self-assertiveness, fear that she will lose the protection of other people, and become even more compliant. Or a detached neurotic may heed dimly sensed desires for love and affection by going to a party, only to leave quickly because the need to move away from people becomes paramount. Such behavior resembles a car that is driven with one foot on the gas pedal and the other foot on the brake, with sufferer lurching first one way and then the other.
Inner conflicts between the neurotic’s repressed true desires and the demands of the idealized image may turn relatively minor decisions into major and exhausting crises, such as whether to attend a social function or what to order for dinner in a restaurant. Other common symptoms of neurosis include hope- lessness and despair about ever getting well, caused by the impossibility of satisfying the idealized image, and fatigue, which results from wasting substantial energy on the severe inner turmoil. Like Adler, Horney regards the Oedipus complex as a symptom that results from improper childrearing, rather than as a universal phenomenon. (See Horney, 1937, pp. 79–84, 159–161; 1939, pp. 79–87; 1945, pp. 143–190; 1950,
p. 143.)
Psychotherapy
Theoretical Foundation. The goal of Horneyan psychotherapy is to unearth and resolve the patient’s deeply repressed inner conflicts, thereby freeing the innate constructive forces to grow and develop. (See Horney, 1939, pp. 276–305; 1945, pp. 217–243; 1950, pp. 333–365.)
Ideally, the patient makes two important discoveries about the supposedly lifesaving neurotic solution: It actually produces increased frustration and self-contempt, and it conceals powerful opposing forces. The neurotic who moves toward people discovers the hostility and selfishness that underlie the excessive desires to please others. The neurotic who moves against people becomes aware of powerful feelings of helplessness. And the neurotic who moves away from people recognizes the strong dependency needs that conflict with the desire to avoid others. The patient must then bring the central inner conflict to light, relinquish the alluring idealized image, and opt for the substantial satisfaction (and challenge) of actualizing the real self. To be effective, however, such insights must be apprehended emotionally as well as intellectually:
[The patient’s] knowledge of himself must not remain an intellectual knowledge, though it may start this way, but must become an emotional experience.… The mere intellectual realization is in the strict sense of the word no “realization” at all: it does not become real to him; it does not become his personal property; it does not take roots in him. (Horney, 1950, pp. 342–343.)
Therapeutic Procedures. Like Freud, Horney makes extensive use of free association and interpretation. However, she is more active than the typical Freudian analyst. Also, like Adler, Horney seeks to change the patient’s chosen objectives and expectations. In response to a patient’s profound feelings of hopelessness, the therapist may say: “Of course the situation is difficult. But what makes it hopeless is your own attitude toward it. If you would consider changing your claims on life, there would be no need to feel hopeless” (Horney, 1945, p. 186). If a patient suffers from powerful fears of being
humiliated by others, the therapist may interpret this as an externalization of intense self-contempt. “It is a long and hard lesson for anybody to learn that others can neither hurt nor establish self-esteem” (Horney, 1950, p. 136).
Unlike Freud, Horney often encourages patients to engage in self-analysis. And she warns that an over- emphasis on childhood events may encourage patients to wallow in the memory of past hurts instead of working at the arduous task of therapy. (See Horney, 1942; 1945, pp. 8, 14, 127–129, 177–178; 1950, p. 351.)
Dream Interpretation. Horneyan psychotherapy derives valuable information from a patient’s dreams. Unlike Adler, Horney regards dreams as indicative of our true feelings, rather than as an attempt at self-deception.
Dreaming of misplacing one’s passport, or of a picture frame that encloses an empty canvas, expresses the loss of the dreamer’s real self. As in individual psychology, dreams of falling reveal the insecurity that underlies the patient’s conscious conceit; and as in analytical psychology, dreaming of being a tramp or idiot may serve as compensation for conscious arrogance. A nightmare of being trapped in a room with a murderer reflects intense self-contempt, whereas dreaming of tenderly cultivating a growing plant suggests self-concern and sympathy. A dream of making a long-distance telephone call to the therapist indicates the wish to maintain a detached orientation, and dreaming of the analyst as a jailer reveals a desire to blame one’s difficulties on others through externalization. (See Horney, 1939, pp. 31–32; 1945, pp. 87, 129; 1950, pp. 31, 152–153, 188, 318, 349–350.)
Resistance and Transference. Horney shares Freud’s belief that patients have powerful unconscious resistances to psychotherapy. But Horney argues that patients defend their neurotic solutions and deny the existence of their inner conflicts in order to preserve a sense of personal unity, avoid the frightening prospect of change, and cling to the only apparently successful mode of adjustment that they have ever known. However, resistances are not entirely harmful. They provide clues about important unconscious issues that the patient wishes to avoid, and they afford protection when the therapist offers interpretations that are too threatening. (See Horney, 1942, pp. 267–285; 1945, pp. 187–189; 1950, pp. 201,
334, 340; Singer, 1970, pp. 223–248.)
In marked contrast to Adler, Horney regards transference as Freud’s greatest discovery. However, she argues that transference occurs because the therapist becomes a ready target for the patient’s habitual attempts to move toward, against, or away from people. The aggressive neurotic tries to dominate the therapist, the detached neurotic waits like a bystander for the therapist to provide miraculous cures, and the compliant neurotic uses pain and suffering to justify expectations of instant help (Horney, 1939, pp. 154–167; 1950, p. 338).
Horney cautions that the goals of therapy are never completely achieved. “It does not lie within the power of the analyst to turn the patient into a flawless human being. He can only help him to become free to strive toward an approximation of these ideals.… The aim of analysis is not to render life devoid of risks and conflicts, but to enable an individual eventually to solve his problems himself (Horney, 1939, p. 305; 1945, p. 243).
Female Sexuality
Although Horney regards herself as a neoFreudian, her theory of female sexuality hews more closely to that of Adler. Her early writings do concede the existence of penis envy; but she emphatically rejects Freud’s contention that healthy women crave a boy baby as a disguised penis substitute, and that the lack of a penis produces greater self-contempt and a weaker superego. According to Horney, an organism bio- logically built for female functions cannot be ruled psychologically by a wish for masculine attributes. She points out that Freudian psychoanalysis is based primarily on studies by male therapists of male patients,
which may well have obscured the joys of motherhood and other uniquely feminine superiorities. (See Horney, 1939, pp. 104–105; 1923–1937/1967, pp. 38, 53–55, 60, 63.)
Instead, Horney emphasizes cultural influences on female behavior. If society regards strength, courage, independence, and sexual freedom as masculine characteristics, while depicting frailty and dependence as inherently feminine, women will tend to believe that they deserve a subordinate position. “The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women’s self-respect” (Horney, 1923–1937/1967,
p. 146). Horney argues that envy works both ways, with men unconsciously jealous of women’s breasts, passivity, and ability to bear children. She also warns that the concept of penis envy may encourage female patients to externalize their problems by blaming them on nature, rather than on their own neurotic behavior. “Every person belonging to a minority group or to a less privileged group tends to use that status as a cover for inferiority feelings of various sources” (Horney, 1939, p. 109).
EVALUATION
Criticisms and Controversies
Horney has been criticized for borrowing too freely from individual psychology and/or Freudian psycho- analysis, and for failing to introduce many new and important constructs. Despite her protestations, externalization is virtually indistinguishable from projection; the idealized image is hardly a radical departure from the superiority complex; should operate much like an overly severe superego; and the idea of intra- psychic conflicts between such opposites as aggressiveness and helplessness closely resembles the defense mechanism of reaction formation. In addition, self-realization is a concept of Jungian origin. Scientific judgment can be unkind to those who merely revise the ideas of others, as Horney herself has observed. “[Many successors] fail to give Freud sufficient credit for pioneering work. It is easy enough to modify, but it takes genius to be the first to visualize the possibilities” (Horney, 1939, p. 154). Nor has her theory stimulated much empirical research.
Perhaps most importantly, Horney’s emphasis on neurosis causes her to neglect normal personality development. Since she regards neurosis as a matter of degree, and uses the term neurotic only in the sense of “a person to the extent that he is neurotic” (Horney, 1945, p. 27), her theory is applicable to more healthy individuals as well. Yet all too many critics have taken her writings at surface value and characterized her primarily as a clinician, seriously underestimating her importance as a personality theorist.
Contributions
Horney’s writings represent the views of a skilled and experienced psychotherapist, and are presented clearly enough to facilitate self-analysis and understanding. Her attempt to modify Freudian psychoanalysis in an Adlerian direction is sufficiently original to be worthy of serious consideration; and it offers a viable alternative for those who accept some of Adler’s tenets and reject Freud’s libido theory, yet wish to retain the idea of intrapsychic conflict. Her approach to anxiety and transference is considerably more insightful than Adler’s, whereas her equalitarian view of women accords well with modern opinion. And Horney provides valuable and well-reasoned insights into the meaning and dynamics of the most common form of psychopathology, neurosis. Although there are those who would regard Horney as outdated, her major works should be required reading for anyone who wishes to acquire a better understanding of the human personality.
SUMMARY
-
The basic nature of human beings. Karen Horney is optimistic about human nature, and concludes that we have the capacity as well as the desire to develop our healthy potentials and become decent individuals. Pathological behavior occurs only if this innate tendency toward self-realization is blocked by external social forces.
-
The structure of personality. Horney stresses the importance of unconscious processes, powerful and actively maintained repressions, and painful intrapsychic conflicts. However, she prefers not to use specific structural constructs.
-
The development of personality. Horney has little to say about normal personality development. She attributes neurosis to disturbed relationships with the parents during childhood. Parents who are too wrapped up in their own neuroses to respond to the child’s needs engage in such pathogenic behaviors as domination, overprotectiveness, overindulgence, humiliation, neglect, and others. The child therefore develops a sense of being alone in an unfriendly and frightening world (basic anxiety).
-
Further applications. Neurosis: The child tries to alleviate painful basic anxiety by exaggerating one of its three main characteristics: helplessness, aggressiveness, or detachment. This results in a pathological overemphasis on moving toward, against, or away from people. The sufferer also forms an idealized image that conflicts with the real self, conceals the true wishes and feelings, and establishes unrealistic and unattainable standards. These standards ensure subsequent failure, which increases the hate for the real self (self-contempt) and dependence on the idealized image. Neurosis is also typified by claims, shoulds, the quest for glory, and other symptoms indicative of severe inner conflicts. Psychotherapy: Horneyan psychotherapy strives to unearth and resolve the patient’s deeply repressed inner conflicts. The patient must learn that the supposedly lifesaving neurotic solution is actually self-defeating, and that it conceals both powerful opposing forces and the sufferer’s true desires and feelings. Procedures include free association, interpretation, more active participation by the therapist than in Freudian psycho- analysis, and dream interpretation. Female sexuality: Horney rejects Freud’s contention that women have greater self-contempt and a weaker superego because they lack the male genital organ. She argues that cultural influences cause women to see themselves as inferior and sub- ordinate, and that men envy certain characteristics of women.
-
Evaluation. Horney has been criticized for adhering too closely to the ideas of Freud and Adler, and for failing to develop a comprehensive theory of her own. But since neurosis represents a difference in degree, rather than in kind, her insights into this disorder contribute significantly to a better understanding of the human personality. In particular, her attempt to modify Freudian psychoanalysis in an Adlerian direction is sufficiently original to be worthy of serious study.