0.5 Karen horney and erich fromm  (Page 8/23)

Discussion Question: After a number of years studying feminine psychology, Horney came to believe that women are no different than any other minority group, and she began to pursue different directions in her career. Are the problems faced by women different than other minority groups? If so, how are they different?

Anxiety and Culture

In the introduction to The Neurotic Personality of Our Time , Horney (1937) makes three important points. First, she acknowledged that neuroses have their roots in childhood experiences, but she also considered the experiences of adulthood to be equally important. Second, she believed that neuroses can only develop within a cultural context. They may stem from individual experience, but their form and expression are intimately tied to one’s cultural setting. And finally, she emphasized that she was not rejecting Freud’s basic theory. Though she disagreed with many of his ideas, she considered it an honor to build upon the foundation of his “gigantic achievements.” To do so, she wrote, helps to avoid the danger of stagnation. If any more evidence than her word was necessary to demonstrate her loyalty to Freud, in this introduction we also find mention of Alfred Adler. Although Horney acknowledges some similarities with Adler’s perspective, she insists that her ideas are grounded in Freudian theory, and she describes Adler’s work as having become sterile and one-sided.

Horney believed that anxiety was a natural state of all living things, something the German philosophers had called Angst der Kreatur (anxiety of the creature), a feeling that one is helpless against such forces as illness, old age, and death. We first experience this anxiety as infants, and it remains with us throughout life. It does not, however, lead to neurotic anxiety. But if a child is not cared for, if their anxiety is not alleviated by the protection of their parents, the child may develop basic anxiety :

The condition that is fostered…is an insidiously increasing, all-pervading feeling of being lonely and helpless in a hostile world…This attitude as such does not constitute a neurosis but it is the nutritive soil out of which a definite neurosis may develop at any time. (pg. 89; Horney, 1937)

Thus, in contrast to Freud’s belief that anxiety followed the threat of id impulses breaking free of the unconscious mind, Horney places anxiety before behavior. The child, through interactions with other people (particularly the parents), strives to alleviate its anxiety. If the child does not find support, then basic anxiety develops, and neurotic disorders become a distinct possibility. From that point forward, the child’s drives and impulses are motivated by anxiety, rather than being the cause of anxiety as proposed by Freud. Basic anxiety is considered basic for two reasons, one of which is that it is the source of neuroses. The other reason is that it arises out of early, but disturbed, relationships with the parents. This leads to feelings of hostility toward the parents, and Horney considered there to be a very close connection between anxiety and hostility. And yet, the child remains dependent on the parents, so it must not exhibit that hostility. This creates a vicious circle in which more anxiety is experienced, followed by more hostility, etc. Unresolved, these psychological processes leave the child feeling not only basic anxiety, but also basic hostility (Horney, 1937; May, 1977). In order to deal with this basic anxiety and basic hostility, Horney proposed both interpersonal and intrapsychic strategies of defense (which we will examine in the next two sections). First, however, let’s take a brief, closer look at Horney’s views on culture and anxiety.