Psychoanalytic Pioneer: Karen Horney.
This paper was prepared for Theories of Personalities, Psychology 2760, Session 1-2014.
Abstract.
Karen Horney was a pioneer of psychoanalysis in the early 1900's. She was born in Germany, where she went to medical school, got married, and had three children. She studied under Freud for time, before creating her own theories. She dared to defy traditional psychoanalysis, because it was completely focused on the male point of view with no consideration for women. In the middle of her carrier she moved with her children to the United States, where she had to prove herself once again. In the end she was a professor at the Chicago school of psychoanalysis, and then the New York school of psychoanalysis where she trained new students of the profession. She published several books and papers on her theories over the entirety of her career. This paper covers just the basics and beginnings of her theories, there is not enough time to fully and in depth cover everything.
Psychoanalytic Pioneer: Karen Horney.
Karen Horney was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1885 (O'Conneil, 1980). Her parents were Berndt and Clotilde Danielson. Her father was a sea captain that later became a commodore, and her mother was Dutch-German, and 18 years younger than Berndt. Karen had an older brother and four half siblings that we teenagers when she was born (O'Conneil, 1980). Karen's parents eventually separated, and although they never divorced, they never got back together. Karen knew at age 12 she wanted to study medicine, and after promising her father that she would ask for nothing else from him, he agreed to pay for her to go to the Realgymnasium. Realgymnasium is like high school and two years of college (O'Conneil, 1980). She graduated in 1906, and entered medical school at the University of Freiburg two years later in 1908. She was the only woman among six men to pass the preclinical exam.
