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Clin Soc Work J (2007) 35:5766
DOI 10.1007/s10615-006-0060-6
ORIGINAL PAPER
Karen Horney and Psychotherapy in the 21st Century
Wendy B. Smith
Published online: 8 August 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006
Abstract Many ideas currently circulating in the psychological and psychoanalytic communities have correspondence with the theories put forth by Karen Horney during the rst half of the twentieth century. This paper provides an overview of Horneys theoretical departures from Freud and an introduction to her then controversial views of motivation and relationship. Compatibility between Horneys ideas and attachment theory, self-psychology, intersubjectivity, and the person in the environment is discussed. Two clinical cases are presented, illustrating Horneys theory and approach.
Keywords Karen Horney Theory of neurosis Basic anxiety Neurotic trends Attachment theory Self-psychology
Introduction
The work of Karen Horney, who died 50 years ago, is remarkably relevant to the problems faced by psychotherapists in the twenty-rst century. Anxiety, a central and organizing theme in her work, is present in todays world at a level which would have been unimaginable to Horney and her contemporaries. Her
recognition of the role of the family in both engendering and mediating anxiety as well as in shaping the individuals response to it is today reected in systems and developmental theories.
Many of her ideas are not only deeply compatible with theories currently circulating in schools of psychoanalysis, but may also be seen as early versions of notions thought to be newly emerging in the areas of motivation, behavior, and development as well as in the theory and practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This paper provides an overview of some of Horneys fundamental departures from Freudian theory, such as her construct of neurosis and neurotic strategies and her view of the analysts role. In the contemporary context, I will discuss the ways in which her thinking is compatible with attachment theory, self-psychology, intersubjectivity, and the social work perspective of understanding the person in his environment. I then will offer some clinical material as seen through a Horneyan lens.
Social Historical Context
Karen Horney was born in 1885, in Hamburg, Germany, to a Protestant upper middle class family. Her Norwegian father was a sea captain and a Bible reader. Her mother was a free-thinking Dutch woman who encouraged her daughter to pursue...