Karen Horney
By:
THEODORE MILLON and
Seth Grossman
Carrie Millon
Sarah Meagher
Rowena Ramnath
Karen
Horney’s descriptive eloquence is perhaps without peer, but it is difficult to
sum up concisely what she regarded as the major solutions to life’s basic
conflicts. Although her primary publications were written over a short period,
she sometimes used different terms to represent similar conceptions.
Considering
the insecurities and inevitable frustrations of life, Horney identified three broad
modes of relating:
·
Moving
toward others,
·
Moving
against others,
·
And
moving away from others.
Those
who move against others are aggressive types with expansive solutions; they
glorify themselves and rigidly deny weakness and inadequacy.
Those
who move away from others have become alienated from life; they achieve peace,
not by investing themselves in any aspiration, but by curtailing needs and
wishes. By employing neurotic resignation, they go through each day as detached
onlookers.
Those
who move toward others, the parallel to the dependent personality in Horney’s schema,
are compliant and self-effacing. They have a marked need for affection and
approval, along with a willingness to forgo self-assertion. Because their
self-esteem is determined by the opinions of others, they subordinate their own
desires, sometimes to the point of self-accusation, helplessness, passivity,
and self-belittlement. For them, love solves all problems.
References
Personality Disorders in Modern Life,
second edition, 2000, 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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