Feminist - Karen Horney

Brianda Miranda

Karen Horney

Karen Horney was a Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst born in Blankenese, Germany on September 16, 1885. Since young, she did not have a great relationship with her strict, intimidating and disciplinarian father. After losing a strong connection with her brother, Berndt, Karen became very depressed. Horney devoted herself entirely to school with the belief that if she couldn’t be pretty, then she should be smart. Horney began medical school in 1906 and married a law student named Oskar Horney in 1909.

Dealing with depression, it was extremely difficult for Horney to handle the death of her mother and brother back in 1911 and 1923. Having difficulty coping, Horney separated herself from her husband and moved with her three daughters to the United States. There she rubbed elbows with very important intellectuals.

Karen Horney is known to be one of Freud’s, a psychoanalyst, biggest critic. Horney was not a student of Sigmund Freud but she did study his work on psychoanalysis. She understood his work greatly and ended up teaching psychoanalysis at institutes located in Berlin and New York. However, she did not agree with all of his theories.

 One of Horney’s most important contribution was her disagreements of Freud’s view of women. In 1967, Horney’s primary objective was to express how women should be treated in psychiatric practice and she did so in Feminine Psychology (Karen Horney; Karen Horney). She strongly disagreed with Freud’s views of the differences between males and females.

Horney decided to then leave the institutes and form her own school known as the American Institute for Psychoanalysis. Horney plays a big part in the way psychology looks at gender differences. Horney had a strong voice in expressing her disagreements with a lot of Freud’s male-dominated theories. Horney challenged Freud on many of his theories. She disagreed with his penis envy theory, the origins of female sexuality, the Oedipus complex, among a few others.

Freud stated that the discovery of a girl’s castration is a turning point in her life (Freud, Fodor and Gaynor). He felt that girls feel inferior to the male that has a penis and because of that, the female gives the male power and significance. Females according to Freud feel inferior and emasculated. Therefore, an individual that possesses a penis can do anything they please as oppose to a female that does not possess a penis.

Freud believed that a female’s psychosexual development is hindered due to a male’s inferior masculinity. According to Freud, female sexuality and male sexuality is one in the same up until the phallic stage of psychosexual development. Horney completely rejected the notion as she believed that this theory was demeaning to women. Instead of following this crazy connotation, Horney introduced womb envy.

Womb envy is known to be the complete opposite of penis envy. It emphasizes the notion that men feel inferior because they cannot give birth to children. Horney suggested that male envy the fact that they cannot nurse, become pregnant or experience motherhood. Because of this envy, men seek superiority in other fields (Psychology Dictionary: the only Free Online Psychology Dictionary).

Sigmund Freud claimed that young boys go through a stage in their development called the Oedipus complex. Around the age of five, young boys wish to have the undying attention from their mothers. This strong urge to have their mother’s constant attention leads them to feel deeply jealous whenever their fathers are around. The jealousy then develops into resentment as they feel that their fathers want to take the young boy’s place.

Karen Horney did not disagree with the conflicts between children and parents but she did not believe that this conflict was due to sexual origins. Horney removed the gender aspect of the complex and interpreted the conflict as a need to have dependence towards an individual’s parents. However, the never ending feud between Karen Horney and Sigmund Freud didn’t just derive solely from their different perspectives on the philosophy of man. Horney drew a distinct line between her concept of human nature and normality.

 Horney believed that there is a basic anxiety rooted in a child’s feelings of isolation and helplessness in a threatening world. This anxiety may have been caused by environmental factors but often it derived from issues in a parent-child relationship.  Karen Horney outlined and described different types of neurotic behaviors as an outcome of misusing coping strategies to deal with anxiety.

Horney supposed that these coping mechanisms might be character trends that are labeled as neurotic trends or needs. These behavior included the neurotic needs for power, prestige and affection. A person can be the compliant type (move toward people), the aggressive type (against people) or the detached type (away from people).