Feminine Psychology

276 Pages·1973·26.23 MB·English

by  Karen Horney

$3.45
N686
'i
Feminine
Psychology
Previously uncollected essa\s, edited and
ith an introduction b\ I larold kclniatij
k'
KAREN HORNEY,
m.d
Id '
Feminine
Psychology
BOOKS BY KAREN HORNEY
The Neurotic Personality of our Time
New Ways in Psychoanalysis
Self-Analysis
Our Inner Conflicts
Neurosis and Human Growth
Feminine Psychology
EDITED BY KAREN HORNEY
Are You Considering Psychoanalysis?
BOOKS EDITED BY HAROLD KELMAN, M.D.
(companion volumes: contributions to KAREN horney's holistic approach)
Advances in Psychoanalysis
New Perspectives in Psychoanalysis
KAREN HORNEY,
M.D
Feminine
Psychology
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Edited and with an Introduction by
HAROLD KELMAN,
m.d.
WW-
NORTON & COMPANY
New York • London
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Harold Kelman, M.D.
Edward R. Clemmens, M.D. John M. Meth, M.D.
Edward Schattner, M.D. Gerda F. Willner,M.D.
COPYRIGHT © 1967 BYW. W. NORTON&COMPANY,INC.
Firstpublished in the Norton Library 1973
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published simultaneously in Canada
by George J. McLeod Limited, Toronto
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. is also the publisher of the works of Erik H.
Erikson, Otto Fenichel, Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, and The
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Horney, Karen, 1885-1952.
Feminine psychology.
(The Norton library)
"Sponsored by the Association fortheAdvancementof
Psychoanalysis."
Includes bi—bliographical references.
Woman
1. Psychology. 2. Sex (Psychology)
I. Association for theAdvancementof Psychoanalysis.
II. Title. [DNI.M: 1. Sex behavior. 2. Women.
HQ 1206 H8l6f 1967a']
[HQ1206.H6 1973] 155.6'33 72-13142
ISBN 0-393-00686-7
Printed in the United States of America
4^6789
12
3
CONTENTS
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
INTRODUCTION
7
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SS
ON THE GENESIS OF THE CASTRATION COMPLEX
WOMEN
IN 37
THE FLIGHT FROM WOMANHOOD
The Masculinity Complex in Women as Viewed
by Men and by Women 54
INHIBITED FEMININITY
Psychoanalytical Contributions to the Problem
of Frigidity 71
THE PROBLEM OF THE MONOGAMOUS IDEAL 84
PREMENSTRUAL TENSION 99
THE DISTRUST BETWEEN THE SEXES 107
PROBLEMS OF MARRIAGE
119
THE DREAD OF WOMAN
Observations on a Specific Difference in the Dread Felt by
Men and by Women Respectively for the Opposite Sex 135
THE DENIAL OF THE VAGINA
A Contribution to the Problem of the Genital
Anxieties Specific to Women 147
PSYCHOGENIC FACTORS IN FUNCTIONAL
FEMALE DISORDERS
162
MATERNAL CONFLICTS
175
6 Contents
THE OVERVALUATION OF LOVE
A Study of a Common Present-day Feminine Type 182
THE PROBLEM OF FEMININE MASOCHISM 214
PERSONALITY CHANGES IN FEMALE ADOLESCENTS 284
THE NEUROTIC NEED FOR LOVE 245
INDEX 259
INTRODUCTION
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
/N
1935 FREUD STATED that hc had reached the very climax of
his psychoanalytic work in 1912.^ He added, "since I put for-
ward my hypothesis of the existence of two kinds of instinct
[Eros and the death instinct] and since I proposed a division of
tlie mental personality into an ego, a super-ego, and an id (in
1923), I have made no further decisive contributions to psycho-
analysis."
By 1913 Karen Horney had received her medical degree in
Berlin and had completed her psychiatric and psychoanalytic
training there. In 1917 she wrote her first psychoanalytic paper*
and by 1920 she had become a valued member of the teaching
staff of the newly founded Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. In
1923 she pu—blished the first of a series • of papers on feminine
psychology "On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Wo-
men," which appears in this volume.
Freud was almost thirty years Horney's senior. During the per-
1. Sigmund Frcud, "An Autobiographical Study," in Collected Papers,
Vol. XX (Londop. The Hogarth Press, 1936; also published New York,
W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1952).
2. Karen Horney, "The Technique of Psychoanalytic Therapy" ("Die
Technik der psychoanalytischen Therapie"), Zeitschr. Sexualivissenschaft,
f.
IV (,9,7).
• The following papers on feminine psychology by Homey are not in-
cluded in this volume: "The Masculinity Complex of Women" (Der Manri-
lichkcitskomplex der Frau), Arch. f. Frauenkunde, XII (1927), pp. 141-54;
"Psychological Suitability and Unsuitability for Marriage" ("Psychische
Eignung und Nichteignung zur Ehe"), "On the Psychological Conditions of
the Choice of a Marriage Partner" ("Ober die psychischen Bestimmungen
der Gattenwahl"), "On the Psychological Roots of Some Typical Marriage
Conflicts" COber die psychischen Wurzeln einiger typischer Ehckonflikte").
In: Ein biologisches Ehebuch, by Max Marcuse (Berlin and Koln. A. Marcus
and E. Weber, 1927); "The Distrust Between the Sexes" ("Das Misstrauen
rwischen den Geschlechtem"), Psychoanal. Bewegung, II (1930), pp". 521-37.
'
8 Introduction
iod when she was acquiring training for the most productive per-
iod of her life, Freud had passed the peak of his greatest creative
powers. Freud's self-evaluation, made in 1935, was partly contrib-
uted to by the pain of "a malignant disease" that had begun to
interfere with his life and work. After 1923, Freud's interests
were coming full circle, culminating in his last book, Moses and
Monotheism (1939). "My interest, after making a life-long detour
through the natural sciences, medicine, psychotherapy, returned
to the cultural problems which had fascinated me long before,
when I was a youth scarcely old enough for thinking".^
Scientific and cultural theories, like human beings, have their
rhythms. Their cycles and changing interests are reflected in the
successive generations who contribute to them. Similarly, in re-
viewing the history of the psychoanalytic movement, we see the
emergence of different ways of explaining behavior.* In this in-
troduction particular emphasis will be placed on the emergence
of Freud's and Horney's ideas on feminine psychology.
There are limits to which a genius can transcend the Weltan-
schauung in which he was reared. It takes another generation to
make that radical leap to a new paradigm in science,'^ to a new
unitive world view of cosmos.
Freud was a product of the nineteenth century. The Age of
Enlightenment had fostered the dignity of the individual and the
primacy of reason. The methodology of the scientific outlook had
produced significant advances in the natural sciences. While West-
em man was still having difiiculty accepting the idea of a helio-
centric universe, he was further bombarded by Darwin's concept
of evolution. Soon he would be confronted with Freud's ideas
about the unconscious.
Naturally, certain aspects of his more immediate milieu also
affected Freud's outlook. He was bom in Freiberg, Moravia, a
province of Austria, into an ostracized minority group and
brought up in a traditionally Jewish household, where man was
3. Freud, op. cit.
4. Harold Kelman and J.W. Vollmerhausen, "On Horney's Psycho-
analytic Techniques, Developments and Perspectives," in Psychoanalytic
Techniques, ed. B.B. Wolman (New York, Basic Books, 1967).
5. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago,
The University of Chicago Press, First Phoenix Edition, 1964), p. 159.