Karen Horney

nacho libre

has anyone posting here read this book?

what were your opinions of it?

p.pete

Not personally, though there seems to be actually several books by Karen Horney. Which one are you referring to and do you have any opinions on it yourself?

nacho libre

Karen Horney- Neurosis and Human Growth.

I found it to be a very interesting read.

below is a review from amazon.com


A person, given the chance, will develop his own feelings, thoughts, wishes, interests and potentialities. He will draw on his own resources, skills, will-power, discipline and he will develop his special abilities and unique gifts. In short, he will grow, substantially undiverted, towards what Karen Horney calls self-realization.

But through a variety of adverse influences, a child, or even an adult, may not be permitted to grow according to his individual needs and possibilities. A persistently hostile environment of people around him, especially during childhood, that are dominating, overindulgent, erratic, partial to others, hypocritical, indifferent, etc., might kill off the ability to grow and become one's real self. As a result the person, does not develop a feeling of belonging of "we", but instead develops a profound insecurity, lack of self-confidence and vague apprehensiveness, which Karen Horney refers to as basic anxieties.

The person tries to resolve the anxiety by either moving away from people (aloofness, isolation), or against people (rebelling) or moving towards people (submission and compliance). In a healthy individual, these coping trends are present and used in varying degrees depending on the situation. But in a neurotic person, these trends become very rigid and contradictory. Eventually, one of the trends will become a dominant trend, and it will become a predominant trait in the person's personality. It is destructive in that it chokes off much of the other parts of a persons personality and impedes growth.

This dominant coping trend is an artificial attempt at a solution, and it will fail. But to a person suffering from a neurosis, the trend will appear to work and even become intensified. With large parts of the person's personality undeveloped and even unavailable, the person in grips of a neurosis will then gradually become alienated from his real self. The alienation from the real self will subsequently be followed and replaced by the image of the idealized-self. The person will not see themselves as they are, but instead will see the idealized-image of themselves-the way they wished they were. The energies driving toward self-realization are then shifted to the aim of actualizing the idealized self. This shift means no more and no less than a change in the course of the individual's whole life and development.

A healthy person will see himself as he is and strive to grow and improve. A neurotic person, however, will see himself as an idealized image. Alienated from his real self, he will no longer have authentic feelings, emotions and ambitions. Instead he will feel what he thinks he should feel according to his idealized self, he will react to others the way he thinks they expect him to react from the perspective of his idealized self.

Ultimately, the neurotic person will fail to live up to his idealized-self. The discrepancy between what he really is and how he sees himself in the idealized image will emerge and it will be a constant source of conflict. Because his idealized image of himself is one of perfection, there is no way for him to measure up. What will then follow is unconscious self-hate and self-contempt.

The person will unconsciously be at war with his real self. Compulsive eating, and many other compulsive disorders, anxieties, despair, inertia and even suicide are often manifestations of unconscious self-hate. The person doesn't realize what is happening, but he is in the grips of a deepening neurosis. He is unconsciously at war with himself.

Karen Horney describes in detail the behavior and personality traits that develop in a neurosis. She explains how it develops and why it is so destructive to the real self. Understanding of one's neurosis is a key development for anyone in the grips of a neurosis, but it is not a cure. She makes it clear, the cure is a process that has to be worked upon with real effort, but knowledge and understanding are the starting point.