Karen HorneyEssay Preview: Karen HorneyReport this essayKaren Horney is one of the preeminent figures and founders of modern psychoanalysis. Although her ideas are not widely taught today or accepted as a basis of psychoanalysis in and of themselves, her ideas of social and environmental influences are “integrated into modern psychoanalysis therapies and personality development theory” (Quinn). She was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and was one of his early followers. Yet Horney joined the class of neo-Freudians after her research and writing led her to develop and establish psychoanalytical theories that ran counter to Freuds ideas. She objected to the Freudian psychology of women, which instigated the search for her own theories for the causes of neurosis. This in turn led to her personality development theory. Horney devoted her professional life to clinical studies and deriving therapies based upon her own observations, theories, and beliefs. “ The foundation of her study rested on the tenet that social, cultural, environmental, and parental factors, influences, and issues shape child development more so than do biological factors” (Hendricks).
In a further divergence from Freudian theories, Karen Horney believed gender based neurotical problems were reflections of other disturbances in the relationships within the childs life rather than integrated biological drives. She used the merging of cultural values into a persons personality as a measuring rod for normal personality adjustment or maladjustment. Her therapy goal was to re-unite the troubled individual with the persons real self, initiating an awareness of self-realization through long term therapy and increasing awareness pertaining to the real self. Using self-realization as the entire foundation of positive mental health and adjustment, she discarded all ideas and theories whereby instincts, biology, or instinctual behaviors played any significant part in mental balance. Horney omitted any other anxiety producing relationships as well. She believed the only relationships having an effect on personality development were between the parent and child, and she therefore, based her theory only on the parent/ child, anxiety/ hostility, and love/ competition relationships.
During the era in which Karen Horneys lived and worked, these were rather revolutionary beliefs for psychoanalysis; her work and writings were not widely acclaimed. As a member of the neo-Freudians, her theories and techniques are considered to lie within a humanistic approach to psychological study. At the outset of her work, Karen Horney “rewrote” some of Freuds theories, but eventually she developed her own theories in opposition to Freuds concerning the origins of unconscious motivations. Out of these ideas arose her psychodynamic theory of personality development. Her entire approach to psychoanalysis was based on her ideas of personality development and from that point she determined whether a person was normally adjusted or maladjusted.
The foundational basis for Horneys personality development theory concerns how a young child reacts to the interpersonal relationships established early in the childs life. Children react with a feeling of “basic anxiety” if they perceive themselves to neglected, rejected, or unloved by a parent or primary caregiver (Horney). This “basic anxiety” then initiates “basic hostility” directed toward the offending adult. This hostility is repressed, however, due to the dependency of the child upon the parent. In order to resolve the anxiety/ hostility/ dependence conflict, the child initiates different types of behavioral patterns or relationships with the offending adult. The child may “move towards people”, “move against people”, or “move away from people”. Those who “move towards people” develop personality traits that emphasize helplessness and compliance. They look to others for their internal satisfaction and shy away from conflict and dissension. Those individuals who “move against people” feel helpless and vulnerable yet mask these inadequacies with a need to maintain the power position in relationships. They often show aggressive tendencies in order to maintain this need for power. Children who tend to “move away from people” in order to resolve the anxiety/ hostility dilemma become emotionally detached in relationships and can become very independent. The basic need for affection also affects personality development and is often manifested in a fear of success. Those who seek love are faced with a fear of lose of love if they seek success through the competition with the others from whom they seek affection. Horney used the needs of the neurotic to develop three coping strategies used by the individual based on the “moving . . . people” theories: compliance, aggression, withdrawal. The child who moves towards people is very compliant. The child who moves against people is aggressive, and the child who moves away from people becomes withdrawn.
Further motivating the childs response are cultural influences, parenting patterns, and social values. Horneys theory of personality development places the emphasis for maturation on the interrelationship of all these factors over biological factors such as genetics, subconscious drives, and libido. At the heart of Horneys approach to personality development was her “basic evil”: parental indifference (as perceived by the child). Whatever the precise or varied hindrances are to normal personality development, Horney attributes all the unfavorable conditions to the people in the childs environment who are too burdened by their own neurotic needs and responses. They are therefore, unable to respond to the child, or love him in a positive, nurturing manner (Horney).
According to Karen Horneys theory of personality development, normal adjustment of an individual occurs when the child pursues all three of the interpersonal relationships at varying times and with different individuals. A normal, well-adjusted child will use all three types with different people or at different times upon the same person. Their subconscious desire for relief from the anxiety/ hostility dilemma will urge them to use the method perceived to be suitable at the time. If one method does not gain them the anxiety relief they desire, he may then shift to another approach. As in most aspects of mental health, the balance of factors and solution methods available provides mental resiliency. Normal personality adjustment is therefore, the end product of self-realization or the reality of the real self being expressed. Therefore, in Horneys analysis, self-realization is the primary dynamic determinant of mental health
Sensitivity
One of the early research into the sensitivity of children to stressors and traumatic events concluded that child sensitivity to stress (and, at any rate, their ability to regulate it) was largely due to stress. Since these people have often developed so much fear, as Horneys notes, some have even expressed their own fear as a result of their own experience and self-experience. Other participants have raised serious concerns of their own mental health that could become a source of shame or a justification for their behavior. In other words, children’s sensitivity for stress can become a psychological and emotional barrier if they are not able to respond in good faith to the stressors/symptoms that are present in real life.
To investigate the effect of fear, anxiety, and fear on the development of children, researchers at Rutgers found that children’s sensitivity to fear, anxiety, and anxiety were all significantly correlated with their scores on a “F (5,1437 x 1.5*p<.0001);" "F (6,931 x 1.1*p<.0001);" "F (7,985 x 1.8*p<.0008);" (8,084 x 1.3*p<.0000)." Children who were subjected to fear had a significantly higher scores for "being aggressive (6,937 x 0.1*p<.0005);" "being aggressive (6,937 x 0.1*per 2 minutes, p<.0001)," and being fearful (6,937 x 0.0 per 1 hour). The researchers found that the more children were exposed to fear during the early childhood age group, the more fear was expressed. This raises the question: Is fear a factor in developing children's vulnerability to stress and to stress-related emotional injuries? These researchers suspect that children at early ages with anxiety are much more vulnerable than children with more social and interpersonal difficulties. An increase in their sensitivity for fear and a decrease in their amygdala expression could perhaps be explained by the greater exposure to anger, frustration, and sadness over trauma over their lifetime.[9] The greater emotional distress associated with having a history of trauma would be the result of the greater experience and feelings of belonging to a group, being exposed to an individual who is angry or has been emotionally abusive. It is possible however, that stress could also play a role in development of children's sensitivity. Finally, in a study to investigate whether children's vulnerability to stress could be explained by increased amygdala sensitivity, the authors found that children with depression or anxiety exhibited a higher amygdala activity during the earliest portion of life. Children who had been exposed to stress exhibited lower amygdala activity during the life of adulthood, even though the activity was unchanged in the life course. Therefore, anxiety could be responsible for the increase in activity of the amygdala.[10] While stress may be responsible for children's sensitivity of their brains, it does not explain their emotional response to such stress in a positive way. Indeed, recent research suggests that when children's vulnerability to anxiety is examined by examining "sensory perception sensitivity" (such arousal being the ability to respond in the same way to a threatening situation) and the rate of amygdala excitability during the early childhood age group, this difference between the children's amygdala response and that of subjects with depression (rather than anxiety) predicts a later increase in "sensory processing sensitivity."[11] How to Identify Psychotherapeutic Intermediaries Anxiety is an individualized form of anxiety that is triggered by an individual's feelings of discomfort or pain and is experienced as a sensation or perceived or perceived pain. Symptoms commonly observed include, but are not limited to: