Sigmund Freud and Karen Horney Case
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There are two well known psychologists today who are Sigmund Freud and Karen
Horney. Sigmund and Horney have different theories, in my opinion I favored Horney theories
the most is because she is a woman and this makes me feel powerful. Second, all of her theories
are mostly about how an individual responds to situations that occur in everyday life. When I
analyzed her theories, it makes sense to me when understanding individuals responding to
everyday situations. In Freuds theories, he believed all individuals are motivated by sexual processes, and sexual processes affected their development , and in Horneys she believedI will contrast Freuds and Horneys views and discuss why I believe Horneys theory is more relevant than Freuds.
Freud is the father of modern psychology; According to the book of An Introduction to Theories of Personality, Freud stated “all of the human personalities are derived from biological instincts. No matter how lofty the thought or the accomplishment, it ultimately relates to the satisfaction of a biological need “(Freud 28). Freud mainly focused on the Oedipus complex. Oedipus complex is to seek out how the unconscious mind develops in the emotion and ideas. To Freud, the Oedipus complex is when the boys want to have sexual intercourse with their mothers and also kill their fathers. When it comes to girls, he believed the girls had sexual attraction to their fathers which is known as Electra complex. Freud also assumed we are like animals that seek pleasure and avoid pain. From the journal article Annual of Psychoanalysis, it mentions Freud started to treat a woman for the first time in 1900. Freud studied a woman named Dora, this is because he wants to understand womens sexuality and seek their hysterical symptom, depression, and sense of injury. He completed his study on Dora by doing a transitional phase of “bewilderment” and doing abortive treatment to search for “normal female castration complex”. Freud came to believe that “women are a failure or inferior to men” (p.43). Freud asked Dora what do you women want, and Dora replied purse. When Freud sees the object purse, he sees that a purse is located around the shoulder and on the womens waist. “Freud realized the object purse is a symbolic of vagina which means women are unconsciously wanted and feared of defloration and vaginal penetration”( p.176-172). This is because women are in a “penis envy” state, which means they want a penis; penis envy is the most popular discussions in Freud theories when it come to talk about women. He believes when a female is at a young age, she is young enough to realize that she is missing a penis. When a female recognized this lack of not having a penis, the female tried to make up for it in different ways for the rest of her life. When women want a penis is it because of the power is represents and holds.
According to Karen Horney, her work is elaborated based on neuroses caused by disturbed human relationship, she found the neuroses behavior from the relationship between the parent and child. When Horney discovered Freuds work of what he viewed in women, Horney came to a strong objection about women who are desire to be men because they want to have equality in the society. When Horney has heard this theory from Freud, she believed this is not
the case of why women wanted to be in the same place as men. Horney explained the reasons of why women feel about having equality in the society is because women often express hostility toward men, complain about the function such as menstruation. When Horney heard about the “penis envy” from Freud, she believed women are not in a state of penis envy just because they are desire to be men, and said if women wanted to be like men they would turn into a tomboy. This is because of womens insecurities or just does not feel like they are part of clone with girls. Horney believed in order for children to have normal development with their inner securities, every child need to experience love and discipline from the parent. From an article of Womens Studies International Forum it stated, “When the parents are providing two important things to the child they will feel safety and satisfaction that let them grow with their real self” (p.128).If the child does not experience love and discipline it is likely the child will develop hostility toward parents. Horney was convinced by her own experiences that children who grow up by having these basic needs met develop a healthy self-concept and have ways to interact with others. When Horney was studying to know more about females, she had found that many females develop a masculinity complex. Masculinity complex is when women are feeling less important to the society. When Horney investigated males, she had found results that men are in a state called “womb envy”. This means when men want to have a