Karen Horney
Karen Horney
Karen Horneywas a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud's theory of penis envy. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women, and she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology. As...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth16 September 1885
CountryUnited States of America
Concern should drive us into action, not into a depression.
That many-faceted thing called love succeeds in building bridges from the loneliness on this shore to the loneliness on the other one. These bridges can be of great beauty, but they are rarely built for eternity, and frequently they cannot tolerate too heavy a burden without collapsing.
Through the eclipse of large areas of the self, by repression and inhibition as well as by idealization and externalization, the individual loses sight of himself; he feels, if he does not actually become, like a shadow without weight and substance.
Like all sciences and all valuations, the psychology of women has hitherto been considered only from the point of view of men.
[Neurotics are] torn by inner conflicts ... Every neurotic ... is at war with himself.
If I couldn't be pretty, I decided I would be smart.
The conception of what is normal varies not only with the culture but also within the same culture, in the course of time.
miracles occur in psychoanalysis as seldom as anywhere else.
the idea of a finished human product not only appears presumptuous but even, in my opinion, lacks any strong appeal. Life is struggle and striving, development and growth - and analysis is one of the means that can help in this process. Certainly its positive accomplishments are important, but also the striving itself is of intrinsic value.
When one begins, as I did, to analyze men after a fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, as well as of breasts and of the act of suckling.
Thou shalt free thyself from convention, from everyday morality.
Until I feel strong enough to pray sincerely and to act accordingly, I would rather not pray at all.
Why is it so unutterably beneficial, the thought that someone besides myself knows me?
The psychology of women hitherto actually represents a deposit of the desires and disappointments of men.