性格心理学之21Personality Theories-pp.121-146-Horney_Fromm

Personality Theories-8th Edition

Chapter 5-Psychoanalytic Social Psychology

-many theorists who followed Freud reacted against his emphasis on instincts and the importance of sexuality in personality formation

-the intrapsychic to interpsychic shift continues with Horney and Fromm

-they emphasize forces in society that influence personality

-Horney stressed social forces within the family

-Fromm pointed beyond family toward social factors within society at large

-they showed how Freud’s concepts were a pr oduct of his social and cultural milieu

-remained in the psychoanalytic framework

KAREN HORNEY (1885-1952):

-born 1885 near Hamburg, Germany into an upper-middle-class family that was economically and socially secure

-father Norwegian, mother Dutch

-Father was a sea captain, so Horney spent most time with mother-a dynamic, freethinking woman

-experience with a kind doctor at 12 made her want to become a physician

-she was independent, original and challenged Freud’s ideas about women also had problems of d epression, insecurity and desperate need for attention and love from men

-her parent’s eventually separated and mother moved to Freiburg where Horney was pursuing her studies at university

-later, she emphasized the role that a stressful environment plays in nurturing basic anxiety

-lack of love and encouragement, quarrelsome parents and other stressful factors lead to feelings of rejection, depression, worthlessness and hostility-she knew these in herself and tried to overcome them

-degree in medicine from University of Berlin

-later associated with the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute

-analyzed by Karl Abraham and Hans Sachs- loyal Freudians

-1909-married Oscar Horney (Berlin lawyer) and had three daughters

-because of their different interests and increased involvement with the psychoanalytic movement they divorced 1937

-One of the first theorists to oppose Freud and speak directly to the issue of feminine psychology

-moved to NYC, opened a private practice and taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute

-Horney and Fromm had a long liaison, personal and professional which provoked feelings of bitterness and revenge

-coming during Great Depression-understood that economic, educational, occupational and social pressures seemed to be foremost in inducing neurotic behaviour

-her disagreements with Freudian and orthodox psychoanalysis led her to leave NY Psychoanalytic Society and founded the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the American Institute of Psychoanalysis

-was dean until her death from cancer in 1952

-concentrated on neurotic aspects of behaviour and sought to overcome Freud’s limitations by emphasizing social and cultural factors and minimizing biological ones

BASIC ANXIETY:

-saw anxiety not as inevitable but a result of social forces

-our essential challenge is to be able to relate effectively to other people

-Basic anxiety- insidiously increasing, all-pervading feeling of being lonely and helpless in a hostile world-results from feelings of insecurity in those relations

-children feel at times that the environment itself is a threat to their development and innermost wishes

-basic evil-all the negative factors in the environment that can provoke insecurity in a child (may include domination, isolation, overprotection, hostility, indifference, inconsistent behaviour, disparagement, parental discord, lack of respect and guidance or lack of encouragement and warmth)

-These undermine child’s security and cause feelings of basic hostility-must be repressed for fear of losing parent’s love

-essential for healthy personality development that they feel safe and secure

-led to formulation of object relations theory

-Horney’s idea’s on importance of earl y interpersonal relationships reflected in Heinz Kohut’s writings