Karen Horney

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Biography3

Contributions5

Neurotic Needs5

Female psychology6

Evaluation8

Personal Response10

References12

Annotated Bibliography13

Karen Horney

Introduction

Karen Horney was an extremely talented and ambitious woman. She is the second most influential person in the field of psychology. The first position is maintained to date by Sigmund Freud. Her work is a masterpiece in that it is truly wisdom of a lifetime collected in mere sentence or two. Many theories on psychotherapy and psychoanalysis that have formed the basis of advanced and modern psychology today have been put forth by Karen Horney (Arenofsky, 2006). Most of these theories relate to relationships and motivation. These are two areas that have captures my greatest interest in the field of psychology. The most interesting ideas given by the psychologists relate to the influence of environment on personality, intersubjectivity, attachment and the psychology of self.

The paper discusses the biography of the theorist, and her contributions in the field of psychology. It also expresses my personal opinion on the work and life of the psychologist who is more than just a theorist for me. Her work has been the foundation of the feminist movement and has been adopted in many other psychology concepts.

Biography

Karen Horney is a woman with an aura. She is an academician, journalist as well as a famous psychologist. Her small stay on the face of the earth lasted between September 16, 1885 and December 04, 1952. She was born in Germany and spent her childhood in Blankenese. She was living in the New York City in order to take up her career as a teacher at New School for Social Research (Fairbanks, 2005). In addition, she had taken up some private practice. During her time at the institute as a teacher, she came up with New Ways in Psychoanalysis and The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. These were two books where Horney discussed related themes. She suggested that the individual personality of a person is formed by a combination of influences of the social conditions in which a person lives as well as the environmental conditions. Very often her profile is connected with that of Sigmund Freud who must be considered as a completion of Horney, Alain LeRoy Locke and Georges J.F. Köhler (Horney, 1940).

As a kid, Horney was faced with the first ever hint of psychology in the form of depression. She had a very strong bond with her brother Berndt. It was her distance with her brother that got her depressed. This depression became a part of her existence and has been with her for the rest of her life. In addition, Horney openly declared that her father was very strict. He was a man who wanted discipline all the time. Horney also had an impression of herself whereby she through she wasn't very attractive as a girl. This, she suggested, was one of the reasons she performed par excellence at school (Horney, 1936). She studied medicine and married a lawyer. She left her husband a couple of years later and moved to United States of America with her three ...