Chapter 9: Horney – Shifting Perspectives on Psychodynamic Theory
Chapter 9: Horney – Shifting Perspectives on Psychodynamic Theory
Part 2: Horney’s Shifting Perspective on Psychodynamic Theory
Horney did not establish a specific theory of personality. Rather, her career proceeded through a series of stages in which she addressed the issues that were of particular concern to her at the time. Accordingly, her theories can be grouped into three stages: feminine psychology, culture and disturbed human relationships, and finally, the mature theory, in which she focused on the distinction between interpersonal and intrapsychic defenses (Paris, 1994).
Feminine Psychology
Horney was neither the first, nor the only, significant woman in the early days of psychodynamic theory and psychoanalysis. However, women such as Helene Deutsch, Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, and Melanie Klein remained faithful to Freud’s basic theories. In contrast, Horney directly challenged Freud’s theories and offered her own alternatives. In doing so, she offered a very different perspective on the psychology of women and personality development in girls and women. Her papers have been collected and published in Feminine Psychology by her friend and colleague Harold Kelman (1967), and an excellent overview of their content can be found in the biography written by Rubins (1978).
In her first two papers, On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Women (Horney, 1923/1967) and The Flight from Womanhood (Horney, 1926/1967), Horney challenged the Freudian perspective on the psychological development of females. Although she acknowledged Freud’s pioneering theories, even as they applied to women, she believed that they suffered from a male perspective and that the men who originally offered these theories simply did not understand the feminine perspective. Horney agreed that girls develop penis envy, but believed that it is not the only dynamic force influencing development during the phallic stage. Girls envy the ability of boys to urinate standing up, the fact that boys can see their genitals, and the relative ease with which boys can satisfy their desire for masturbation. More important for girls than penis envy, however, was the fear and anxiety young girls experience with regard to vaginal injury if they were to actually have intercourse with their fathers (which, Horney agreed, they may fantasize about). Thus, they experience a unique dynamic force called female genital anxiety. Another element of the castration complex in women, according to Horney, was the consequence of castration fantasies that she called wounded womanhood (incorporating the belief that the girl had been castrated).
Far more important than these basic processes, however, was the male bias inherent in society and culture. The very name phallic stage implies that only someone with a phallus (penis) can achieve sexual satisfaction and healthy personality development. Girls are repeatedly made to feel inferior to boys, feminine values are considered inferior to masculine values