Karen Horney and her interpretation of psychoanalysis

Karen Horney is one of the few female names that appear in the history of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. during the first half of the 20th century. She was, without a doubt, an admirable woman. She was not afraid to confront the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, proposing her own theory.

This psychoanalyst did not share Freud’s vision on the determining factor of sex in the formation of the psychic structure. Karen Horney thought that, beyond biology, culture decisively influenced the formation of personality. Her theories achieved an important impact and that is why she shone with her own light.

The theory he created is named after him. He suffered rejection from many of the psychoanalysts of his time. Despite this, She was the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in United States. This organization was frequented by figures of the stature of Erich Fromm, Harry Sullivan and Margaret Mead, among others.

The beginnings of Karen Horney

Karen Horney was born in Hamburg (Germany), on September 16, 1885. She was the daughter of a couple very conservative, made up of his father, who was a navy captain, his mother, a housewife, and five brothers. Four of them were children from her father’s first marriage.

Karen’s mother did not love her husband. This seems to have had a big impact on Horney as a child. Mother’s contempt for marriage made her educate her daughter to be above the classic destiny of women at that time. He encouraged her to study medicine and supported her to achieve it, making great sacrifices.

Despite everything, Karen married Oskar Horney and then finished her studies. She joined the neuropsychiatric clinic at the University of Berlin and there He met one of the most brilliant psychoanalysts of his time: Karl Abraham . She psychoanalyzed herself with him and, at the same time, he began to train as a psychoanalyst.

A conceptual turn

Karen Horney had some emotional problems. She could not have a full sexual life and she also suffered from depressive episodes. During her psychoanalysis, Abraham claimed that this was due to an incestuous desire towards his father. Karen rejected that interpretation and since then had a critical position towards classical psychoanalysis..

Karen Horney’s marriage began to fail when her husband became financially bankrupt and became ill with meningitis. Later, due to the arrival of World War II, Karen decided to settle in the United States. There she would develop most of her work.

Karen Horney’s contributions

Karen Horney decisively rejected the concept of “penis envy” proposed by Freud. He argued that the feelings of inferiority and sexual inhibitions present in many women were not due to anatomical determinations.. Rather, they were the result of a restrictive education, which denied and demeaned the feminine.

Although Karen Horney maintained the psychoanalytic postulate according to which childhood is the decisive stage in the formation of neurosis, she also gave her own interpretation to this. According to her, it is not sexual conflicts that end up generating anguish and neuroses. Rather, it is the affection or disaffection of parents that determines mental health..

For Horney, If parents do not meet the emotional needs of their children, they give rise to feelings of hostility, frustration and inhibition.. And if the expression of this hostility is restricted, self-destructive fantasies and difficulties in social relationships appear in the person. All this leads to anguish.

From psychoanalysis to humanism

Karen Horney became emotionally involved with Erich Fromm and his humanist thought had a great impact on her.. Their union was intellectually very productive. However, professional jealousy and relationship conflicts also appeared. This caused them to break off the relationship and, at the same time, disband the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, of which they were both part.

It is considered that Karen Horney was the first to give an absolutely decisive place to affection during childhood.. His entire theory maintains that the feeling of helplessness during the first years completely marks the human mind.

Horney’s most notable works were The neurotic personality of our time and Neurosis and maturity . It was not until ten years after his death that he was given a truly prominent place in the history of the mental sciences. Today she is considered one of the founders of the humanist movement.

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