Karen Horney

Accounting for Neurosis Karen Horney's work of non-fiction, Neurosis and Human Growth, is many different things. It is an astute analysis of the self -- both as it exists inwardly and externally. It is a comparative effort on some of the most eminent theories pertaining to Sigmund Freud. It also offers more than a little advice for how to account for life and the feelings of fulfillment and completeness towards which most people strive.

In addressing all of these various aspects of human existence, the author relies on the conception of the neurotic as a fundamental starting point for how the self operates, what it accounts for, and how it ultimately plays out in the lives of any different number of individuals. This reliance on the neurotic as the touchstone for the author's myriad concepts discussed in this book function as the central takeaway of a work that actually spans in many different directions.

It is important to realize that Horney views neuroticism as a reactionary aspect of human life and not an immanent one. This point is tremendous and actually helps to focus the scope of the book and the vast majority of the notions the author addresses in this manuscript.

In fact, what Horney is actually alluding to by offering this idea is the fact that human nature in and of itself is not base, self-serving, or looking for simple carnal gratifications (all tenets which are central to many of Freud's most popular theories about people and human nature in general).

Instead, the author postulates that all people have an inner self -- described as a "central inner force" (Horney) that is buoyant, positive, and which seeks to help them grow and achieve a sort of independence which realizes the true sense of completion and meaning of human existence.

However, the author believes that there is a process of deliberate socialization -- which takes many different forms from relationships and encounters with family and friends to a growing cognizance of an overall community and its expectations -- which shifts the individuals' focus away from his or her innate self and towards what eventually leads to neurosis.

The crux of Horney's theory is that because of the various factors of socialization which lead the individual away from his or her own intrinsic self, he or she then creates an artifice or an artificial self in which to live. The problem, as the author sees it, is that the individual then attempts to compensate for abandoning his or her own self and does so in a way that inevitably leads to neurosis.

The neurotic aspect of the self that the individual creates is based on the fact that the new self is not one's own internal self, but rather an "idealized self-image" (Horney) which is attempting to react to standards and situations in the world at large.

As such, that self is constantly trying to be something that it is not, and there are no small number of different ways in which a person will attempt to create perfection -- and his or her role in it -- in order to live up to these standards which are not truly his or hers.

It is this sense of falsehood in the self of the individual that leads to a sense of the neurotic, since that person is ultimately trying to become someone he or she is not to account for the external world, as opposed to nurturing and growing his or her own intrinsic self. Again, it is crucial to realize that according to Horney, all people begin their lives with a unique perspective and means of viewing the world and their own selves.

Neuroticism and neurotic behavior -- described as "neurotic drives" (Horney), however, are merely coping mechanisms to adapt to the surrounding world. These points are so vital because of their implications which are largely at variance with those of the implications of Freud's theories. Human nature, the author posits, is inherently unique and, for lack of a better word, wondrous. It also needs encouragement and a degree of isolation from external sources in order to foster its "healthy strivings" (Horney).

Moreover, many of the negative attributes of humanity are actually forms of learned behavior or, perhaps more accurately, defense mechanisms from some of the fundamental aspects of socialization. The point is that these negative facets of people's characters -- which stem from the idealized versions of their selves that they create to make up for the fact that they have actually abandoned their own inner selves and ways of being -- are not immanent.

They are merely idealizations -- such as harboring images of perfection, attempting to assert power and dominance over others because one does not feel such true power in one's own life and other "compulsive drives" (Horney) -- that are apart from human nature as it exists in its basic, most inner self. Horney's work is also useful as a means of exploring the phenomenon of neurosis. In particular, the author indicates that there is an futility in neurotic behavior which on some level, most people either acknowledge or aware of.

The premise is that all neurotic behavior stems from the desire to attain an idealized self that was created in response to the external world -- and which ignores the inner self that is within the individual. No matter how much one is able to appear to have success in maintaining that idealized image, there will almost always be instances in which it that idealized self-image is not realized and people fail.

That sort of failure is what prompts the feelings of frustration and negativity that surround those who are neurotic and who are attempting to live and be a certain way that is actually not aligned with their inner selves. The author actually thinks it is impossible for anyone to live up to an idealized self-image, and that people are better off understanding and cultivating their inner selves.

Perhaps the main drawback of this book is that the author focuses so much on the neurotic tendencies that individuals evince when attempting to create and live up to their idealized selves. It would seem that the more interesting part of her theory is the development of one's intrinsic inner self, which she primarily.