Karen Horney Glossary

The Self and Growth

Real Self

The authentic core of the person, containing the individual's potential for healthy growth and self-realization.

Actual Self

What a person actually is at a particular time, including strengths, weaknesses, feelings, behaviors, and conflicts.

Idealized Self

An unrealistic image of what a person believes he or she should be. Rather than providing a healthy goal for growth, the idealized self can become an impossible standard against which the person judges the actual self.

Despised Self

The negative image a neurotic person develops of the self when the actual person fails to measure up to the impossible demands of the idealized self.

Self-Realization

The healthy development and fulfillment of the potentials contained within the real self.

Tyranny of the Shoulds

The rigid and unrealistic demands people place upon themselves in an attempt to become their idealized selves. The person becomes dominated by beliefs about what he or she "should" be.

Striving for Glory

The neurotic attempt to achieve the impossible idealized self rather than developing the potentials of the real self.

Self-Hatred

The rejection or condemnation of the actual self when it fails to meet the unrealistic demands of the idealized self.

Looking-Glass Self

A related concept from other theorists referring to the self a person believes other people see. Boeree uses this concept while explaining Horney's self theory, but it is not Horney's own construct.

Development of Neurosis

Parental Indifference (Basic Evil)

A perceived lack of parental warmth and affection during childhood. Horney considered parental indifference the "basic evil" underlying neurotic development. What is important is the child's perception of the relationship, not simply the parent's intentions.

Basic Hostility

The anger and sense of injustice a child may experience toward parents who fail to provide sufficient warmth, affection, security, and protection.

Basic Anxiety

A pervasive feeling of insecurity, helplessness, isolation, and vulnerability that develops when the child experiences the social environment as unsafe or unreliable.

Neurotic Needs

Normal human needs that have become unrealistic, indiscriminate, and excessively important as ways of coping with basic anxiety. Horney identified ten neurotic needs.

Neurotic Trends

Persistent and irrational patterns of relating to oneself and others that develop as attempts to cope with anxiety and emotional conflict.

The Ten Neurotic Needs

Need for Affection and Approval

An indiscriminate need to please other people, gain their approval, and be liked by them.

Need for a Partner

A desperate need for a partner who will take over one's life, provide security, and solve one's problems. The person becomes excessively dependent upon the relationship.

Need to Restrict One's Life

A need to live within very narrow limits, remain inconspicuous, demand little, and avoid drawing attention to oneself.

Need for Power

An excessive need to control other people and appear powerful. It may include a façade of omnipotence, contempt for weakness, and an exaggerated belief in one's own strength or rational abilities.

Need to Exploit Others

A need to manipulate other people and "get the better" of them. Other people may be viewed primarily in terms of how they can be used or what can be gained from them.

Need for Social Recognition or Prestige

An excessive concern with popularity, appearance, status, and public recognition, accompanied by a fear of being ignored or considered unimportant.

Need for Personal Admiration

A need to be admired and continually recognized as important, exceptional, talented, or significant.

Need for Personal Achievement

An obsessive need to succeed, excel, or be number one. Areas in which success seems unlikely may be dismissed or devalued.

Need for Self-Sufficiency and Independence

An excessive need to avoid depending upon anyone else. Needing help or emotional support may be interpreted as weakness, leading the person to avoid dependence and commitment.

Need for Perfection and Unassailability

A relentless need to appear flawless and avoid mistakes, weaknesses, or defects that other people might discover.

Three Coping Strategies

Horney grouped the ten neurotic needs into three broad ways of coping with basic anxiety.

Moving Toward People (Compliance)

A coping strategy based upon gaining safety through affection, dependence, and submission. It includes the needs for affection and approval, a partner, and restricting one's life. The underlying approach is essentially, "If I can make you love me, you will not hurt me."

Moving Against People (Aggression)

A coping strategy based upon gaining safety through power, dominance, competition, exploitation, recognition, admiration, and achievement. The underlying approach is essentially, "If I have power, no one can hurt me."

Moving Away from People (Withdrawal)

A coping strategy based upon gaining safety through emotional distance, independence, self-sufficiency, and withdrawal from other people. The underlying approach is essentially, "If I withdraw, nothing can hurt me."

Defenses Against Inner Conflict

Eclipsing the Conflict

Attempting to reduce awareness of an inner conflict by emphasizing one side of the conflict so strongly that the opposing side becomes difficult to recognize.

Detachment

Reducing conflict and anxiety by withdrawing emotionally from other people and attempting to become independent of relationships.

Externalization

Experiencing internal feelings, conflicts, or problems as though they originate outside the self, and then responding to the external world as though it were the source of the difficulty.

Blind Spots

Failing to recognize behaviors, feelings, or characteristics that are inconsistent with one's idealized image of oneself.

Compartmentalization

Separating incompatible beliefs or behaviors so that their contradictions are not recognized at the same time.

Rationalization

Explaining behavior or motives in reasonable and socially acceptable terms while avoiding recognition of the underlying conflict or motive.

Excessive Self-Control

Attempting to manage inner conflict by tightly controlling emotions, impulses, and spontaneous reactions.

Arbitrary Rightness

Rigidly insisting that one's own position, judgment, or solution is correct in order to avoid uncertainty and inner conflict.

Elusiveness

Avoiding firm commitments to opinions, decisions, or actions so that contradictory tendencies do not have to be confronted.

Cynicism

Rejecting or questioning moral values and ideals as a way of avoiding uncertainty, disappointment, or conflict concerning one's own values.

Additional Horney Concepts

Womb Envy

Horney's proposed male counterpart to Freud's concept of penis envy. Some men may experience envy of women's ability to become pregnant, bear children, and nurture them. Horney suggested that achievement and the desire to leave a lasting legacy could sometimes serve as compensation.

Self-Analysis

Horney's proposal that people with relatively minor neurotic difficulties may be capable of examining and understanding their own conflicts without continuous professional analysis.