NEO-FREUDIANS:Karen Horney, Erich Fromm

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History and Systems of Psychology PSY502

Lesson 35

NEO-FREUDIANS

Karen Horney

She was an American psychoanalyst and is classified as a Neo-Freudian. Horney was a pioneering theorist in

personality, psychoanalysis, and feminine psychology.

Karen Horney offered a list of ten neurotic needs which are:

1. Need for approval

2. Need for domination

3. Confine life

4. Independence

5. Perfection

6. Power

7. Exploiting others

8. Prestige

9. Ambition

10. Admiration

These needs lead to neurotic trends.

Neurotic trends appear as three kinds in social dealing:

i. Movement towards

Some children who feel a great deal of anxiety and helplessness move toward people in order to seek help

and acceptance. They are striving to feel worthy and can believe the only way to gain this, through the

acceptance of others. These people have an intense need to be liked, involved, to be important, and

appreciated. So they will often fall in love quickly or feel an artificial but very strong attachment to people,

even they may not know well. Their attempts to make that person love them create a clinginess and

neediness and it often results in the other person leaving the relationship.

ii. Movement away

The final possible consequence of a neurotic household is a personality style filled with a social behaviour

and an almost indifferent to others. If they don't get involved with others, they can't be injured by them.

While it protects them from emotional pain of relationships, it also keeps away all positive aspects of

relationships. It leaves them feeling alone and empty.

iii. Movement against

Another way to deal with insecurities and anxiety is to try to force your power onto others in hopes of

feeling good about yourself. Those with this personality style come across as bossy, demanding, selfish, and

even cruel. Once again, relationships appear doomed from the beginning.

The idealized image of the self is an attempt by a person to integrate his personality. Horney distinguishes

between situational neurosis and character neurosis. Her method of treatment was to discover the neurotic

needs, the movement away, movement towards, and movement against plus bring it to the attention of the

person.

History and Systems of Psychology PSY502

Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm is another psychoanalyst who was trained in classical Freudian mode but later developed his

own theory and system. Born in 1900 and died in 1980, he worked and practiced in Chicago and New York,

U.S.A. In his famous book "Escape from Freedom" written in 1941 he proclaimed his break from Freud

and classical psychoanalysis.

Fromm asserted in the book that man has become free, but he longs to become dependent, and longs to

belong; this is man's dilemma. It means that although man has become free, he has experienced freedom

from the terms/requisites of the society, yet the internal desire to be affiliated with someone still exists. In

other words, man wants to be related to a group which becomes his identity. This forms the basis of a

society. Further, this craving to belong may also be to have affection from someone.

Fromm said that this need for freedom and dependence creates orientations. Orientations are relatively

prominent forms in which we spend our energy. He identified five orientations:

i. Receptive orientation

Receptive orientation is represented in a submissive and meek attitude. This means that man tends to accept

what is being enforced upon him in order to satisfy his desire to belong to someone or some group.

ii. Exploitative orientation

Exploitative orientation means to be aggressive and using others for own purposes. This orientation entails

that a person makes use of others for achieving his personal motives, which may not be in other person's

interest.

iii. Hoarding orientation

Hoarding orientation is represented in distrust for others and rigidity shown by a person. In other words, a

person who feels that he cannot trust others tends to keep everything with himself. He also becomes rigid

in his approach not letting anything change his dispositions.

iv. Marketing orientation

Marketing orientation is represented when the person adopts socially approved ways of behaviour and

dealing with others and sells himself. In other words the person behaves in a manner which is liked by

others. Therefore, he markets himself in front of others.

v. Productive Orientation

Productive orientation is the healthy way of life. This is the way of life where the individual realizes his full

potential.

The first four are neurotic orientations. In later life Fromm became more of a social philosopher than a

psychoanalyst and wrote and delivered lectures on his view of psychology and society.

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