Karen Horney Journal
Karen Horney Journal
Eric Gudan
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
GUDAN 117
rather than sex and death. Normally, children receive this security
through contact with the family in a nurturing home environment. If the
child perceives a lack of genuine love or care, due to indifference,
favoritism, inconsistency, ridicule, etc., the result is emotional insecurity.
Horney labeled this state basic anxiety and defined it as the feeling of
being isolated and helpless in a world conceived as potentially hostile
(p. 18).
Horney (1950) posited that these children unconsciously
develop coping strategies to respond to this basic anxiety. Depending on
their temperament or situation, children present a compliant, aggressive,
or withdrawn stance. These children seek security by cooperating and
ingratiating themselves with others, by becoming strong enough to avoid
getting hurt, or by isolating themselves from others. They have judged
themselves incapable of getting the love that they want. Who they
actually are has been insufficient to meet their needs, so they respond by
projecting idealized selves. A fundamental split exists between who the
children are, their actual selves, and who the children present themselves
as and want themselves to be, the ideal self.
Horney (1950) holds that adult neurotics have generalized this
fundamental split into a dysfunctional dynamic in relating to
themselves, the world, and others. Adult neurotics cycle among the
compliant, aggressive, and withdrawn stances, unconsciously replaying
the habitual mode of response from their childhood. The same pattern
continues in the neurotic, perhaps because the emotional insecurity is
still present and because the person simply does not know another way
of responding.
Though these patterns of action become ingrained into the
neurotic, actions and attitudes create a fundamental split within the
neurotic toward reality. Horney (1950) uses the term tyranny of the
shoulds to describe the tension between the real self and the ideal
self. The real self is despised because it gave rise to basic anxiety. The
person is disassociated from the possibilities and qualities of the actual
self which comprise the person now and forces the idealized version of
self, precluding the possibility to realize the potential of the real self.
Neurotics are compulsively driven to be something they are not. They
should be this and should be that to have emotional security.
Anxiety and fear, rather than the attraction of the good, motivate their
actions. These shoulds go beyond simple admonitions or suggests and
become demands that dominate the decision-making process, effectively
becoming a tyranny of the shoulds. The persons anxiety forces the
neurotic towards an ideal that has no correlation with actual abilities or
circumstances. The idealized self sets an impossibly high standard for
the neurotic:
Healthy Psychology
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and love as positive forces within the person on the journey to self-
realization, it is unclear what separates these positive forces from
shoulds. While Horney provides insight into how the healthy person
would act in a non-neurotic way, the principle by which the healthy
person lives out life is not specified.
Indeed, she seems to imply that normal maturity will develop in
the person unless basic anxiety causes neurosis. Horney (1950) outlines
this vision of the person at the outset of her work. She compares the
human individual growing and maturing with an acorn growing into an
oak. The person will grow toward this self-realization on his or her own,
freely and healthily developing the real self as that central inner force,
common to all human beings and yet unique in each, which is the deep
source of growth (p. 17). The healthy person is in touch with the actual
self and is in the process of realizing the real self. The non-neurotic
chooses a direction in life, rather than being driven by internal forces
that are not understood or known. The non-neurotic person is solidly
grounded in reality and leads a healthy life of creativity and love.
The psychological view of the human person is limited if it can
only describe the healthy person as lacking neurosis. Although neurosis
can be seen as a moderately pervasive spectrum disorder, this caveat still
does not resolve the issue. Though most persons may have some
dichotomy between the real selves towards which they strive and the
idealized self foisted upon them by their anxieties, the constitutive
principle by which a person can be judged to be non-neurotic remains
unclear. Furthermore, it seems too optimistic simply to hope that the
neurotic person will develop towards self-realization virtually
automatically, once the neurotic coping mechanisms are removed.
Simply leading the neurotic out of neurosis without a clear
goal, or at least a method of attaining one, leaves the psychologist with
a risky task. Though the psychologist can help the neurotic to adjust
certain symptoms of the dysfunctional attitudes and actions of neurosis,
the lack of a better framework of vital and flourishing coping
mechanisms may allow a recrudescence of neurosis and incomplete
mental health. A more explicit understanding of how a healthy person
lives could be very beneficial for a psychologist in helping the ex-
neurotic avoid relapse and stagnation. A psychologist should have a clear
understanding of how a healthy person evaluates the actual self to
determine the real self that the person can become. In other words, a
psychologist should have a grasp of the motivational structure of a
healthy person as that person realizes his or her potential. A vision of an
unfettered and emotionally integrated process to live the good life will
make it easier to break through the emotional baggage inherent in
dysfunctional behavior patterns carried since childhood.
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Towards Personal Vocation
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Discernment becomes the nexus point between Grisezs
personal vocation and Horneys real self. The healthy person is
authentic, acting according to his actual self and working towards the
real self. This person achieves self-integration through attainable,
personal goals discovered through discernment. The healthy person
considers possible goods, all of which are attractive, but commits
through choice to the one which best instantiates the real self that the
person is able and desires to become. This is in contrast to the neurotics
tyranny of the shoulds which drives the person to seek mutually
exclusive goals simultaneously, e.g., he should be spontaneous; he
should always control his feelings (Horney, 1950, p. 65). Personal
vocation is the practical living out of the fundamental principle of
morality, a selection of the good from within the particular
circumstances of the individual. Personal vocation is the means by which
a person best realizes individual potential.
Lest the individual become too atomized, it is good to recall the
importance of community in discerning a vocation. The human person,
in Horneys view, is naturally communal and made for love. Neurosis, in
a sense, is the result of the breakdown of community. The focus was
decidedly on interpersonal factors. To me neurosis was still essentially
a disturbance in human relationships (Horney, 1950, p. 367).
Community is a fundamental condition for the real self to actualize
itself, to grow from acorn to oak. Others give the child basic emotional
security: in community the person develops inner strength. If he can
thus grow with others, in love and in friction, he will also grow in
accordance with his real self (p. 18). The goods which motivate an
individual, those that become most attractive and present in the mind, are
determined largely by the society around the person. The community
both shapes the individuals views and offers opportunities for action. An
individual never chooses to live out a personal vocation alone, but rather
always in community. Persons living out their personal vocations are
non-neurotic, what Horney would term as self-fulfilled.
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never be violated: evil cannot be chosen. In choosing a goal, a person
becomes the kind of person who achieves that goal. Although fulfilling
chosen commitments restrict certain possibilities, conformity to past
decisions also expands possibilities for human fulfillment.
Horney, K. (1950). Neurosis and Human Growth. New York: Norton and
Co.
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