1. The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Karen Horney
The Neopsychoanalytic Approach

2. Neopsychoanalytic Reaction to Freud
Humans motivated by need for security and love, not by sex and aggression
Influence of gender experience
More emphasis on social factors in influencing personality

3. Safety Need
Social forces in childhood, not biological forces influence personality
No universal stages of development
Childhood is dominated by need for security and freedom from fear
Parents foster security by treating the child with warmth and affection
Normality of personality development direct function of level of warmth and affection received by parents

4. Basic Anxiety Pervasive feeling of loneliness and helplessness
Foundation of neurosis
4 ways we protect ourselves in childhood from basic anxiety:
Securing love and affection
Being submissive
Attaining power
Withdrawing

5. Neurotic Needs
Definition: Irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part of personality and that affect behavior
Encompass the 4 ways of protecting ourselves against anxiety

6. 10 Neurotic Needs Affection and approval (gaining affection)
A dominant partner (submissive)
Power (attaining power)
Exploitation (attaining power)
Prestige (attaining power)
Admiration (attaining power)
Achievement or ambition (attaining power)
Self-sufficiency (withdrawing)
Perfection (withdrawing)
Narrow limits to life (withdrawing)

7. Neurotic Trends
3 categories of behaviors and attitudes toward oneself and others that express a person’s needs
Neurotic persons are compelled to act based on one of the neurotic trends
Movement toward others (compliant personality)
Movement against others (aggressive personality)
Movement away from others (detached personality)

8. Neurotic Trends Affection and approval (mvmt. toward)
A dominant partner (mvmt. toward)
Power (mvmt against)
Exploitation (mvmt. against)
Prestige (mvmt against)
Admiration (mvmt. against)
Achievement or ambition (mvmt against)
Self-sufficiency (mvmt away)
Perfection (mvmt away)
Narrow limits to life (mvmt away)

9. The Compliant Personality
Move toward others
Intense need for affection and approval
Urge to be loved, wanted
Manipulate others to achieve goals
Think of self as helpless
Suppress desires to control, exploit others

10. The Aggressive Personality
Move against people
Survival of the fittest
See self as superior
Driven to succeed to compensate for feelings of insecurity, anxiety

11. The Detached Personality
Move away from others
Strive to become self-sufficient
Desire for privacy
Maintain emotional distance

12. Personality types
1 usually dominates, other 2 present to lesser degree
Conflict
Basic incompatibility of 3 trends
Core of neurosis
Experience very intense conflict

13. Idealized Self-Image
Normal people: Built on flexible, realistic assessment of one’s abilities
Neurotic people: Inflexible, unrealistic self-appraisal
Tyranny of the shoulds
Used by neurotics to attain the idealized self
Deny true self and behave in terms of what we think we should be doing
Externalization: Reduce conflict caused by discrepancy between ideal and actual self

14. Feminine Psychology
Revision of psychoanalysis to include psychological conflicts found in the traditional ideal of womanhood and women’s roles

15. Research and Assessment
Used techniques of case study, free association and dream analysis
Personality types in childhood appear to continue through to adulthood
Tyranny of the shoulds: Those who engaged in tasks because they wanted to versus because they thought they should scored higher on general life satisfaction

16. Criticisms of Horney
Theory of personality not as well constructed as Freudian theory
Ignores roles of sociology and anthropology in influencing personality
Observations too influenced by middle class America

17. Contributions of Horney
Contribution to feminist psychology
Influence on Erikson and Maslow
More optimistic view of personality than Freud
Accounts for social factors in shaping personality