Karen Horney
Karen Horney
Karen Horneywas a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud's theory of penis envy. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women, and she traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology. As...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth16 September 1885
CountryUnited States of America
The psychology of women hitherto actually represents a deposit of the desires and disappointments of men.
When one begins, as I did, to analyze men after a fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, as well as of breasts and of the act of suckling.
It would not be going too far to assert that ... conflict confronts every woman who ventures upon a career of her own and who is ... unwilling to pay for her daring with the renunciation of her femininity.
Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.