Karen Horney

1. Karen Horney The Neopsychoanalytic Approach

3. Neopsychoanalytic • Reaction to Freud • Self-analysis • Humans motivated by need for security and love, not by sex and aggression • Advocate for open marriage • “engaged” in the company of younger men • View sex as a source of inspiration • Influence of gender experience • More emphasis on social factors in influencing personality

4. Safety and Satisfaction • 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 developments because of warmth and affection received by parents

5. Non-safety • The Basic Evil leads to Basic Hostility • Indifference toward the child… • Ridicule… • False promises… • The unfortunate predicament arises… • Repress • Generalize to the world

6. All you need is love?Loves conquers all • “ A child can stand a great deal of what we regard as traumatic-such as sudden weaning, occasional beating, sex experience-as long as inwardly he feels wanted and loved.”

7. 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

8. 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)

9. Neurotic Needs • Defense mechanisms • Normal and neurotics engage in them • What is the distinction?

10. 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)

11. 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

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

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

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

15. 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

16. Fromm’s Basic Human Conditions and Needs Freedom is a basic human condition that posits a “psychological problem” As people have gained freedom, we have become characterized by feelings of separation and isolation Escape Mechanisms Three mechanisms to escape from the burden of freedom Authoritarianism Destructiveness Automation conformity

17. Table 5.2: Basic Needs Based on Fromm, 1955,1973

18. Table 5.3: Character Orientations

19. Chapter 6 Erikson/ A. Freud

20. Role of Culture • Epigenetic Principle • Nurture shapes nature

21. Crisis • Important turning point • Can be solved positively or negatively • Three phases of a crisis • Immature phase: not the focal point of personality development • Critical phase: the focal point of personality development • Resolution phase: point at which personality is set • Society determines the resolution of the crisis

22. Psychosocial Stages of Personality Development • 8 successive stages over the lifespan • Addresses bio, social, situational, personal influences • Crisis: must adaptively or maladaptively cope with task in each developmental stage • Respond adaptively: acquire strengths needed for next developmental stage • Respond maladaptively: less likely to be able to adapt to later problems

23. Psychosocial Stages of Development Trust versus Mistrust: Hope Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt: Will Initiative versus Guilt: Purpose Industry versus Inferiority: Competence Ego Identity versus Role Confusion: Fidelity Intimacy versus Isolation: Love Generativity versus Stagnation: Care Ego Integrity versus Despair: Wisdom

24. Human Relations: Object Relations Theory, The Stone Center Group Chapter 7

25. Object Relations Theory Seeks to understand the interaction between intrapsychic dynamics and interpersonal relationships Melanie Klein (1882-1960) Proposed that drives are psychological forces that seek people as their objects Splitting

26. Object Relations Theory Heinz Kohut (1913-1981) Self theory suggests that children need to have their talk and accomplishments acknowledged Nuclear self and autonomous self Narcissistic character disorders occur when individuals fail to develop independent sense of self

27. Object Relations Theory Otto Kernberg (1928 - ) Process of splitting described interpersonal relationships with borderline individuals Transference focused psychotherapy Aggression is viewed as a major motivating force

28. Object Relations Theory Reproduction of motherhood = cyclical process by which mother-daughter relationship instills the daughter with a desire to take on the role of mother Mothering meets women’s psychological need for reciprocal intimacy Psyche develops differently for men and women Sense of gender is a fusion of personal and cultural meaning

29. Figure 7.1: Reproduction of Mothering

30. Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT):The Stone Center Group Developed a new collaborative theory of human development within relationships Psychology of development of both sexes constrained and contorted by “framework of inequity” Women have critical strengths, largely unrecognized by society, that can bring creative force to human problems

31. Shifting the Paradigm Connectedness to others is basic origin of growth Disconnections block our growth and prevent people from engaging in mutually exclusive empathic relationships Need to shift thinking from a paradigm based on individualistic values towards relational values Relationship-differentiation process

32. Table 7.1: Stone Center Group

33. Connections and Disconnections Empathy Experiencing feelings and thoughts of another while being aware of one’s own different feelings and thoughts Fosters connections and lead to growth within relationships Mutual empathy fosters mutual empowerment characterized by zest Disconnection Poses great problems in relationships of unequal power

34. Psychotherapy Can provide path to increased authentic connections Goal of therapy is to help patients make mutual empathetic connections Therapists remain open to their own experiences and permit themselves to be moved by their patients’ feelings

35. Neurobiological Basis of Relationships Research in neurobiology provides substantial confirmation of the theoretical work of RCT, supporting central premise that relationships are at core of human development Positive social interactions discharge brain chemicals that are pleasurable Disconnection via social pain is detrimental to brains and mental health