Karen Danielsen Horney - biograpy

Karen Danielsen Horney

[Psychoanalytic Social Theory]

• Built on the assumption that social and cultural conditions, especially childhood experiences; are largely responsible for shaping personality

[Karen Danielsen Horney]

• September 15, 1885 - Born in Eilbek, Germany
• The youngest children of a 50 years old father (captain) and his second wife (younger 18 years old than his husband)
• Had an older siblings favored by the parents
• Felt unwanted and unloved
• Unhappy family - Older half-siblings turned father against his second wife
• Felt hostility toward her stern, devoutly religious father and idolized her mother who protected her
• Age 13 : Want to be a Physician, No university in Germany admitted women
• Age 16 (Start of her independence)

             - Despite the objection of her father, entered gymnasium

• Independence was superficial
• Compulsive need to merge with a great man

             - Morbid dependency : Idealization and fear of inciting angry rejection haunted Horney
                                                  during her relationships with a series of men

• 1906 : University of Freiburg
• One of the first women in Germany to study medicine
• Oskar Horney - Political science student
• Married in 1909 : Settle in Berlin

             - 1910 : Began an analysis with Karl Abraham ( attended his evening seminars)
             - 1915 : Received her MD degree
             - 1917 : Wrote her first paper on psychoanalysis
                          "The Technique of Psychoanalytic Theory"

• Give birth to 3 daughter in 5 years

             - 1926 : Separated (Divorced in 1938)

• Freud reacted negatively to Horney's position, she become even more outspoken
• 1932

             - Left Germany for a position as Associate director of the newly established Chicago
                psychoanalytic Institute

• Resigned from the institution over issues of dogma and orthodoxy and formed a rival organization - The Association for the Advancement of psychoanalysis

             - AAP become the Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute

• Died of cancer on December 4, 1952

[Introduction to psychoanalytic Social Theory]

• Constructed a revisionist theory that reflected her own personal experiences
• Culture, especially early childhood experiences, plays a leading role in shaping human personality, either neurotic or healthy
• Early childhood traumas are important, but differed from him in her insistence that social rather than biological forces are paramount in personality development

[Horney  VS  Freud]

• Objected to Freud's ideas on feminine psychology
• Stressed to emphasize the importance of cultural influences in shaping personality
• "Man is ruled not by the pleasure principle alone but by two guiding principles : Safely and satisfaction."
• Questioned Freud's validity of his interpretations