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Karen Horney. The Neopsychoanalytic Approach. Neopsychoanalytic. Reaction to Freud Humans motivated by need for security and love, not by sex and aggression Influence of gender experience More emphasis on social factors in influencing personality. Safety Need.
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Karen Horney The Neopsychoanalytic Approach
Neopsychoanalytic • Reaction to Freud • Humans motivated by need for security and love, not by sex and aggression • Influence of gender experience • More emphasis on social factors in influencing personality
Safety Need • 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 development direct function of level of warmth and affection received by parents
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
Neurotic Needs • Definition: Irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part of personality and that affect behavior • Encompass the 4 ways of protecting ourselves against anxiety
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)
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)
Neurotic Trends • Affection and approval (mvmt. toward) • A dominant partner (mvmt. toward) • Power (mvmt against) • Exploitation (mvmt. against) • Prestige (mvmt against) • Admiration (mvmt. against) • Achievement or ambition (mvmt against) • Self-sufficiency (mvmt away) • Perfection (mvmt away) • Narrow limits to life (mvmt away)
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
The Aggressive Personality • Move against people • Survival of the fittest • See self as superior • Driven to succeed to compensate for feelings of insecurity, anxiety
The Detached Personality • Move away from others • Strive to become self-sufficient • Desire for privacy • Maintain emotional distance
Personality types • 1 usually dominates, other 2 present to lesser degree • Conflict • Basic incompatibility of 3 trends • Core of neurosis • Experience very intense conflict
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
Feminine Psychology • Revision of psychoanalysis to include psychological conflicts found in the traditional ideal of womanhood and women’s roles
Research and Assessment • Used techniques of case study, free association and dream analysis • Personality types in childhood appear to continue through to adulthood • Tyranny of the shoulds: Those who engaged in tasks because they wanted to versus because they thought they should scored higher on general life satisfaction
Criticisms of Horney • Theory of personality not as well constructed as Freudian theory • Ignores roles of sociology and anthropology in influencing personality • Observations too influenced by middle class America
Contributions of Horney • Contribution to feminist psychology • Influence on Erikson and Maslow • More optimistic view of personality than Freud • Accounts for social factors in shaping personality