Assignment Instructions \THIS IS FOR WEEK 6!! The Learning Reflection Journal is a compilation of weekly learning reflections you'll independently write about across Weeks 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7. During each of the assigned weeks, you will write two paragraphs, each 300 words in length (i.e., 600 words total). The first paragraph will describe a topic that you found particularly interesting during that week and what made it interesting, and the second paragraph will describe something that you have observed occurring in the real world that exemplified that topic. Only one topic may be recorded in the journal for each assigned week and your observed real word occurrence must be clearly related to it. READING Personality Theory Created July 7, 2017 by user             Karen Horney stands alone as the only women recognized as worthy of her own chapter in many personality textbooks, and the significance of her work certainly merits that honor.  She did not, however, focus her entire career on the psychology of women.  Horney came to believe that culture was more important than gender in determining differences between men and women.  After refuting some of Freud’s theories on women, Horney shifted her focus to the development of basic anxiety in children, and the lifelong interpersonal relationship styles and intrapsychic conflicts that determine our personality and our personal adjustment.             Personally, Horney was a complex woman.  Jack Rubins, who knew Horney during the last few years of her life, interviewed many people who knew her and came away with conflicting views:      She was described variously as both frail and powerful, both open and reticent, both warm and reserved, both close and detached, both a leader and needing to be led, both timid and awesome, both simple and profound.  From these characterizations, the impression emerges that she was not only a complex personality but changeable and constantly changing.  She was able to encompass and unify, though with struggle, many diverse attitudes and traits… (pg. 13; Rubins, 1972)             Erich Fromm, who was a lay-analyst with a Ph.D. (not an M.D. like most early psychoanalysts), focused even more than Horney on social influences, particularly one’s relationship with society itself.  He not only knew and worked with Horney personally, but the two were intimately involved for a number of years, and Fromm analyzed Horney’s daughter Marianne.  Both Horney and Fromm can be seen as extending Adler’s emphasis on social interest and cooperation (or the lack thereof), and their belief that individuals pursue safety and security to overcome their anxiety is similar to Adler’s concept of striving for superiority. Brief Biography of Karen Horney             Karen Clementine Theodore Danielssen was born on September 16th, 1885, in Hamburg, Germany.  Her father was Norwegian by birth, but had become a German national.  A successful sailor, he had become the captain of his own ship, a.

1. Assignment Instructions
THIS IS FOR WEEK 6!!
The Learning Reflection Journal is a compilation of
weekly learning reflections you'll independently write about
across Weeks 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7. During each of the assigned
weeks, you will write two paragraphs, each 300 words in length
(i.e., 600 words total). The first paragraph will describe a topic
that you found particularly interesting during that week and
what made it interesting, and the second paragraph will describe
something that you have observed occurring in the real world
that exemplified that topic. Only one topic may be recorded in
the journal for each assigned week and your observed real word
occurrence must be clearly related to it.
READING
Personality Theory
Created July 7, 2017 by user
Karen Horney stands alone as the only women
recognized as worthy of her own chapter in many personality
textbooks, and the significance of her work certainly merits that
honor. She did not, however, focus her entire career on the
psychology of women. Horney came to believe that culture was
more important than gender in determining differences between
men and women. After refuting some of Freud’s theories on
women, Horney shifted her focus to the development of basic
anxiety in children, and the lifelong interpersonal relationship
styles and intrapsychic conflicts that determine our personality
and our personal adjustment.
Personally, Horney was a complex woman. Jack

2. Rubins, who knew Horney during the last few years of her life,
interviewed many people who knew her and came away with
conflicting views:
She was described variously as both frail and powerful, both
open and reticent, both warm and reserved, both close and
detached, both a leader and needing to be led, both timid and
awesome, both simple and profound. From these
characterizations, the impression emerges that she was not only
a complex personality but changeable and constantly changing.
She was able to encompass and unify, though with struggle,
many diverse attitudes and traits… (pg. 13; Rubins, 1972)
Erich Fromm, who was a lay-analyst with a Ph.D. (not
an M.D. like most early psychoanalysts), focused even more
than Horney on social influences, particularly one’s relationship
with society itself. He not only knew and worked with Horney
personally, but the two were intimately involved for a number
of years, and Fromm analyzed Horney’s daughter Marianne.
Both Horney and Fromm can be seen as extending Adler’s
emphasis on social interest and cooperation (or the lack
thereof), and their belief that individuals pursue safety and
security to overcome their anxiety is similar to Adler’s concept
of striving for superiority.
Brief Biography of Karen Horney
Karen Clementine Theodore Danielssen was born on
September 16th, 1885, in Hamburg, Germany. Her father was
Norwegian by birth, but had become a German national. A
successful sailor, he had become the captain of his own ship,
and his family accompanied him on a few of his voyages,
including trips around Cape Horn, along the west coast of South
America, and as far north as San Diego in the United States.
Those trips established a life-long interest in travel, foreign
customs, and diversity in the young Karen Horney. Although
her father was a stern and repressive man, her mother, who was
Dutch and 17 years younger than Horney’s father, was a

3. dynamic, intelligent, and beautiful woman who maintained a
very happy home for the children (Kelman, 1971; Rubins, 1972,
1978).
From early childhood, Horney enjoyed reading,
studying, and going to school. She was particularly interested
in the novels of Karl May, who often wrote about the Native
Americans, and Horney would play many games in which she
pretended to be an Indian (usually, Chief Winnetou, a fictional
character from May’s novels). Her father believed that
education was only for men, but her mother encouraged
Horney’s schooling, and in doing so, set an example of
independence that greatly influenced Horney’s life and career.
Horney followed the traditional education of the day, covering
science, math, French, Latin, English, and the humanities. She
also took special classes in speech, and for a time was very
interested in dancing, drama, and the theatre. Despite the
challenging curriculum, she was an excellent student, and often
placed first in her class. After being impressed by a friendly
country doctor when she was 12, she decided to pursue a career
in medicine. When she began college at the University of
Freiburg-in-Breisgau, at the age of 20, her mother came along
to get her settled in and care for her. Horney soon became good
friends with Ida Grote, who moved in with Horney and her
mother to help offset the costs of attending college. In 1906,
Horney also met her future husband, Oskar Horney (Kelman,
1971; Rubins, 1972, 1978).
Over the next few years, she began her medical studies
at the University of Gottingen, and then transferred to the
University of Berlin, where she received her medical degree in
1911. In 1909 she had married Oskar Horney, who was
described as a tall, slim, handsome man, a brilliant thinker,
gifted organizer, and possessing great physical and emotional
strength. He also attended the University of Berlin, eventually
receiving doctorate degrees in Law, Economics, and Political
Science! They soon had three daughters, Brigitte, Marianne,
and Renate (between 1911 and 1915). Both Karen and Oskar

4. Horney were successful in their careers during the beginning of
their marriage. He worked as a lawyer for a munitions
company, and did very well financially. She was actively
developing her medical career, but had to work that much
harder due to continued discrimination against women at the
time. Still, the family spent time together on weekends, when
her brother’s family often visited, and vacations. Nonetheless,
the Horneys grew apart during these years. In 1923, during the
turmoil following World War I, Oskar’s investments collapsed,
and he eventually went bankrupt. A year later, he was stricken
with severe encephalomeningitis, and spent 8 months in critical
condition. These events radically altered his personality, as he
became a broken and depressed person. In 1926 they separated,
and never got back together. It was not, however, until 1939
that Karen Horney legally divorced her husband (Kelman, 1971;
Rubins, 1972, 1978).
For Karen Horney’s career, the years in Berlin were
important and productive. She entered into psychoanalysis with
Karl Abraham, and later she was also analyzed by Hanns Sachs
for a brief time. Abraham appointed her as an instructor in the
Berlin Psychoanalytic Poliklinik in 1919, and brought her to the
attention of Sigmund Freud (with high praise). She came to
know many of the candidates for psychoanalytic training, and
also became friends with many of them, including Melanie
Klein, Wilhelm Reich, and Erich Fromm. She also had many
friends outside psychoanalytic circles, including the existential
theologian Paul Tillich and the neurologist Kurt Goldstein (who
coined the term self-actualization). The psychoanalytic scene in
Berlin was active and dynamic, and Horney was very much in
the middle of it all, never shy about expressing her own ideas
and different opinions. One such issue was that of training lay-
analysts (psychologists, as opposed to psychiatrists). She
favored allowing the training for the purposes of research, but
clearly favored medical training for those who would actually
practice therapeutic psychoanalysis. This eventually led to
conflict between Horney and her close friend Erich Fromm.

5. Despite the many favorable circumstances in Berlin at the time,
in the early 1930s Hitler was elected, and the Nazi regime
began. Although Horney was not Jewish, psychoanalysis was
considered a “Jewish” science. So, when Franz Alexander, who
had been asked to come to Chicago to establish a new
psychoanalytic training institute, asked her to be the Associate
Director of the newly established Chicago Institute of
Psychoanalysis, she accepted (Kelman, 1971; Rubins, 1972,
1978). This dramatic turn in the events of her life did not,
however, occur without a bit of chance. Alexander had first
asked Helene Deutsch, one of the first women to join Freud’s
psychoanalytic group (see Sayers, 1991), but Deutsch was not
interested at the time. Thus, Horney was the second choice for
the position that brought her to America for the rest of her life
(Kelman, 1971; Rubins, 1972, 1978).
Once in Chicago, however, her theoretical differences
with Alexander became a clear source of disagreement.
Alexander was not willing, as Horney was, to discard
significant elements of Freud’s original theories. So, just 2
years later, in 1934, Horney moved to New York City and
joined the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. A number of her
friends from Berlin had also come to New York, including Erich
Fromm and Paul Tillich, and Wilhelm Reich also visited her
there. She soon met Harry Stack Sullivan and Clara Thompson,
as they were establishing their new training institute in New
York. She also began teaching at the New School for Social
Research, and the American Institute for Psychoanalysis. Her
private practice grew steadily, and Alvin Johnson, the president
of the New School (as it is commonly known) introduced her to
W. W. Norton, who established a well-known publishing house
that produced all of Horney’s books. Her first book was
entitled The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937), which
was followed by perhaps her two most radical books, New Ways
in Psychoanalysis (1939) and Self-Analysis (1942). Horney had
pursued new techniques in psychoanalysis and self-analysis, in
part, because of her dissatisfaction with her own results as both

6. a patient and a psychoanalyst. Later, she published Our Inner
Conflicts (1945), Are You Considering Psychoanalysis (1946),
and Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-
Realization (1950). After her death, Harold Kelman (who was
both a friend and colleague) brought together a number of her
early papers in Feminine Psychology (Kelman, 1967), and, as a
special tribute, Douglas Ingram published the transcripts of her
final lectures, presented during a class she taught in the fall of
1952 (Ingram, 1987).
During the 1930s and 1940s, Horney’s personal life was
a social whirlwind. She entertained frequently, often cooking
herself, and when her own home was in disarray she would
arrange the party at a friend’s home. She bought and sold
vacation homes often, including one where Oskar Horney stayed
for a time, and she traveled frequently. She enjoyed playing
cards, and wanted to win so much that she would sometimes
cheat! When caught, she would freely admit it, laugh, and say
that her opponents should have stopped her sooner. Sometimes
she would even gather her friends together and loudly sing
German songs, in memory of their homeland (Kelman, 1971;
Rubins, 1972, 1978).
At work, however, there was constant tension regarding
theoretical and political issues in the psychoanalytic societies.
In 1941, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute voted to
disqualify Horney as a training analyst, due to her seemingly
radical ideas on psychoanalytic techniques. Half the society did
not vote, however, and they soon left to form a new institute.
Immediately following the vote, Horney walked out, and a
group of analysts led by Clara Thompson followed her. The
very same month, twenty analysts joined Horney in forming the
Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, and
Horney was asked to become the Dean of their soon to be
established American Institute for Psychoanalysis. When
Thompson suggested that Sullivan be granted honorary
membership, and Horney recommended the same for Fromm,
Fromm refused because he was not going to be recognized as a

7. clinical psychoanalyst. The resulting controversy led to a
committee review, which voted against Fromm’s membership.
Among others, Fromm, Thompson, and Sullivan left the
society. There were other political battles as well, and Horney
was routinely torn between her professional beliefs, her need to
control the direction of the society and institute, and her
personal friendships with the individuals involved. Through it
all, although she held strong beliefs (such as opposing
therapeutic psychoanalysis by lay-analysts like Fromm), she
nonetheless encouraged challenging the original theories
developed by Freud, as well as her own theories:
I recall being impressed by her response at my first meeting
with her, when I indicated my own curiosity and bent for
research. She had warmly hoped I would continue this way,
since her views needed further work and clarification. Indeed,
during an interview in 1952, she stated that she knew her ideas
would be changed, if not by herself by someone else. (pg. 37;
Rubins, 1972)
By 1950, Horney seemed to be feeling lonely and
isolated. Perhaps the political and theoretical battles had taken
their toll, perhaps it was her strained relationships with her
daughters (they were never really close), or perhaps it was the
beginning of the cancer that would eventually take her life.
Although Horney would not consult with her physician about
the abdominal pains she was experiencing (thus she did not
know that she had cancer), she did begin to develop strong
spiritual interests. She occasionally attended Tillich’s sermons
at St. John the Divine Church, though she seemed more
interested in the philosophical and ethical aspects of religion
than the spiritual aspects. She kept a copy of Aldous
Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy (1945/2004) by her bedside
for over a year, reading daily on Huxley’s interpretations of
Eastern and Western mystics. A few years earlier she had met
D. T. Suzuki, and she became particularly interested in Zen.

8. She was especially impressed by a book he recommended
entitled Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel, 1953; based on an
article he wrote in 1936). In 1951, Suzuki led Horney on a trip
to Japan, where she visited a number of Zen temples and had
lengthy discussions with Zen monks. Although she seemed
more interested in the practical aspects of being a student of
Zen, she nonetheless endeavored to put Zen principles into a
context she could understand (such as equating enlightenment
with self-realization; Rubins, 1972, 1978). Late in 1952, her
cancer became so advanced that she finally sought medical
care. However, it was too late. On December 4, 1952, she died
peacefully, surrounded by daughters.
Placing Horney in Context: Culture and the Female Psyche
Karen Horney’s career intersected many areas of
psychology, relevant both to the past and to the future. One of
the first women trained in psychoanalysis, she was the first to
challenge Freud’s views on women. She did not, however,
attempt to reject his influence, but rather, felt that she honored
him by building upon his achievements. The most significant
change that she felt needed to be made was a shift away from
the biological/medical model of Freud to one in which cultural
factors were at least as important. Indeed, she challenged
Freud’s fundamental belief that anxiety follows biological
impulses, and instead suggested that our behaviors adapt
themselves to a fundamental anxiety associated with the simple
desire for survival and to cultural determinants of abnormal,
anxiety-provoking situations.
Horney was also significant in the development of
psychodynamic theory and psychoanalysis in America. She
helped to establish psychoanalytic societies and training
institutes in Chicago and New York. She was a friend and
colleague to many influential psychoanalysts, including Harry
Stack Sullivan and Erich Fromm. She encouraged cross-cultural
research and practice through her own example, not only citing
the work of anthropologists and sociologists, but also through

9. her personal interest and support for the study of Zen
Buddhism.
Although Horney herself abandoned the study of feminine
psychology, suggesting instead that it represented the cultural
effect of women being an oppressed minority group, her
subsequent emphasis on the importance of relationships and
interpersonal psychodynamic processes laid the foundation for
later theories on the psychology of women (such as the
relational-cultural model). Thus, her influence is still being felt
quite strongly today.
Horney's Shifting Perspectives on Psychodynamic Theory
Horney did not establish a specific theory of
personality. Rather, her career proceeded through a series of
stages in which she addressed the issues that were of particular
concern to her at the time. Accordingly, her theories can be
grouped into three stages: feminine psychology, culture and
disturbed human relationships, and finally, the mature theory in
which she focused on the distinction between interpersonal and
intrapsychic defenses (Paris, 1994).
Feminine Psychology
Horney was neither the first, nor the only, significant
woman in the early days of psychodynamic theory and
psychoanalysis. However, women such as Helene Deutsch,
Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, and Melanie Klein remained
faithful to Freud’s basic theories. In contrast, Horney directly
challenged Freud’s theories, and offered her own alternatives.
In doing so, she offered a very different perspective on the
psychology of women and personality development in girls and
women. Her papers have been collected and published
in Feminine Psychology by her friend and colleague Harold
Kelman (1967), and an excellent overview of their content can
be found in the biography written by Rubins (1978).
In her first two papers, On the Genesis of the Castration
Complex in Women (Horney, 1923/1967) and The Flight from
Womanhood (Horney, 1926/1967), Horney challenged the
Freudian perspective on the psychological development of

10. females. Although she acknowledged Freud’s pioneering
theories, even as they applied to women, she believed that they
suffered from a male perspective, and that the men who
originally offered these theories simply did not understand the
feminine perspective. Horney agreed that girls develop penis
envy, but not that it is the only dynamic force influencing
development during the phallic stage. Girls envy the ability of
boys to urinate standing up, the fact that boys can see their
genitals, and the relative ease with which boys can satisfy their
desire for masturbation. More important for girls than penis
envy, however, was the fear and anxiety young girls experience
with regard to vaginal injury were they to actually have
intercourse with their fathers (which, Horney agreed, they may
fantasize). Thus, they experience a unique dynamic force
called female genital anxiety. Another element of the castration
complex in women, according to Horney, was the consequence
of castration fantasies that she called wounded
womanhood (incorporating the belief that the girl had been
castrated).
Far more important than these basic processes,
however, was the male bias inherent in society and culture. The
very name phallic stage implies that only someone with a
phallus (penis) can achieve sexual satisfaction and healthy
personality development. Girls are repeatedly made to feel
inferior to boys, feminine values are considered inferior to
masculine values, even motherhood is considered a burden for
women to bear (according to the Bible, the pain of childbirth is
a curse from God!). In addition, male-dominated societies do
not provide women with adequate outlets for their creative
drives. As a result, many women develop a masculinity
complex, involving feelings of revenge against men and the
rejection of their own feminine traits. Thus, it may be true that
women are more likely to suffer from anxiety and other
psychological disorders, but this is not due to an inherent
inferiority as proposed by Freud. Rather, women find it
difficult in a patriarchal society to fulfill their personal

11. development in accordance with their individual personality
(unless they naturally happen to fit into society’s expectations).
Perhaps the most curious aspect of these early studies
was the fact that Horney turned the tables on Freud and his
concept of penis envy. The female’s biological role in
childbirth is vastly superior (if that is a proper term) to that of
the male. Horney noted that many boys express an intense envy
of pregnancy and motherhood. If this so-called womb envy is
the male counterpart of penis envy, which is the greater
problem? Horney suggests that the apparently greater need of
men to depreciate women is a reflection of their unconscious
feelings of inferiority, due to the very limited role they play in
childbirth and the raising of children (particularly breast-
feeding infants, which they cannot do). In addition, the
powerful creative drives and excessive ambition that are
characteristic of many men can be viewed, according to Horney,
as overcompensation for their limited role in parenting. Thus,
as wonderful and intimate as motherhood may be, it can be a
burden in the sense that the men who dominate society have
turned it against women. This is, of course, an illogical state of
affairs, since the children being born and raised by women are
also the children of the very men who then feel inferior and
psychologically threatened.
In a later paper, Horney (1932/1967) carried these ideas
a step further. She suggested that, during the Oedipus stage,
boys naturally judge the size of their penis as inadequate
sexually with regard to their mother. They dread this
inadequacy, which leads to anxiety and fear of rejection. This
proves to be quite frustrating, and in accordance with the
frustration-aggression hypothesis, the boy becomes angry and
aggressive toward his mother. For men who are unable to
overcome this issue, their adult sexual life becomes an ongoing
effort to conquer and possess as many women as possible (a
narcissistic overcompensation for their feelings of inadequacy).
Unfortunately, according to Horney, these men become very
upset with any woman who then expects a long-term or

12. meaningful relationship, since that would require him to then
prove his manhood in other, non-sexual ways.
For women, one of the most significant problems that
results from these development processes is a desperate need to
be in a relationship with a man, which Horney addressed in two
of her last papers on feminine psychology: The Overvaluation
of Love (1934/1967) and The Neurotic Need for
Love (1937/1967). She recognized in many of her patients an
obsession with having a relationship with a man, so much so
that all other aspects of life seem unimportant. While others
had considered this an inherent characteristic of women, Horney
insisted that characteristics such as this overvaluation of
love always include a significant portion of tradition and
culture. Thus, it is not an inherent need in women, but one that
has accompanied the patriarchal society’s demeaning of women,
leading to low self-esteem that can only be overcome within
society by becoming a wife and mother. Indeed, Horney found
that many women suffer an intense fear of not being normal.
Unfortunately, as noted above, the men these women are
seeking relationships with are themselves seeking to avoid long-
term relationships (due to their own insecurities). This results
in an intense and destructive attitude of rivalry between women
(at least, those women caught up in this neurotic need for
love). When a woman loses a man to another woman, which
may happen again and again, the situation can lead to
depression, permanent feelings of insecurity with regard to
feminine self-esteem, and profound anger toward other women.
If these feelings are repressed, and remain primarily
unconscious, the effect is that the woman searches within her
own personality for answers to her failure to maintain the
coveted relationship with a man. She may feel shame, believe
that she is ugly, or imagine that she has some physical defect.
Horney described the potential intensity of these feelings as
“self-tormenting.”
In 1935, just a few years after coming to America,
Horney rather abruptly stopped studying the psychology of

13. women (though her last paper on the subject was not published
until 1937). Bernard Paris found the transcript of a talk that
Horney had delivered that year to the National Federation of
Professional and Business Women’s Clubs, which provided her
reasoning for this change in her professional direction (see
Paris, 1994). First, Horney suggested that women should be
suspicious of any general interest in feminine psychology, since
it usually represents an effort by men to keep women in their
subservient position. In order to avoid competition, men praise
the values of being a loving wife and mother. When women
accept these same values, they themselves begin to demean any
other pursuits in life. They become a teacher because they
consider themselves unattractive to men, or they go into
business because they aren’t feminine and lack sex appeal
(Horney, cited in Paris, 1994). The emphasis on attracting men
and having children leads to a “cult of beauty and charm,” and
the overvaluation of love. The consequence of this tragic
situation is that as women become mature, they become more
anxious due to their fear of displeasing men:
…The young woman feels a temporary security because of
her ability to attract men, but mature women can hardly hope to
escape being devalued even in their own eyes. And this feeling
of inferiority robs them of the strength for action which rightly
belongs to maturity.
Inferiority feelings are the most common evil of our time
and our culture. To be sure we do not die of them, but I think
they are nevertheless more disastrous to happiness and progress
than cancer or tuberculosis. (pg. 236; Horney cited in Paris,
1994)
The key to the preceding quote is Horney’s reference to
culture. Having been in America for a few years at this point,
she was already questioning the difference between the greater
opportunities for women in America than in Europe (though the
difference was merely relative). She also emphasized that when

14. women are demeaned by society, this had negative
consequences on men and children. Thus, she wanted to break
away from any perspective that led to challenges between men
and women:
…First of all we need to understand that there are no
unalterable qualities of inferiority of our sex due to laws of God
or of nature. Our limitations are, for the greater part, culturally
and socially conditioned. Men who have lived under the same
conditions for a long time have developed similar attitudes and
shortcomings.
Once and for all we should stop bothering about what is
feminine and what is not. Such concerns only undermine our
energies…In the meantime what we can do is to work together
for the full development of the human personalities of all for
the sake of general welfare. (pg. 238; Horney cited in Paris,
1994)
…