Karen Horney and her books

[Jana]

Anybody fun of her here or at least know her work?
I stumbled at Our inner conflicts. Many "aha moments", so I started with other titles as well. She writes simple and you can easily understand point.
She worked in midle of 20th century, trained as "freudist", but move on from his teaching. I felt as someone tear off my outer image that I show to world. She precisely expoused many of our behaviour simply as masks of dealing with world. Reading her, I fel as if my Infj "I want to be truth to myself" need started to scream from some deep hole of my soul
So, you won't to feel better at first when you read Horney, but you can learn a lot. At least I did.

 

[knight in battle]

@Jana

I've only heard of her ideas in psychology class. It's one thing to have goals, but it's pretty destructive to keep thinking we "should" be someone else.

I like this quote:

The compliant person believes "I should be sweet, self-sacrificing, saintly."
The aggressive person says "I should be powerful, recognized, a winner."
The withdrawing person believes "I should be independent, aloof, perfect."


I also like her beliefs about self-analysis:

"Horney wrote one of the earliest "self-help" books, and suggested that, with relatively minor neurotic problems, we could be our own psychiatrists. You can see how this might threaten a few of the delicate egos who make their livings as therapists!"

 

[Jana]

I liked her because she is honest in describing problem encouring people to become aware of real feelings and motives. For example, it is one thing to be strong and independt, but if it is mask that one wears in every situations it become some sort of escape. Same with being nice or anything else.

 

[knight in battle]

I guess isolation is as much a mask as all the other kinds. Not that isolation can't help self-esteem, but if it's done without the proper mindset, it means we don't connect with other people enough. In other words, we see people as threats rather than distractions; huge difference.

 

[Jana]

I guess isolation is as much a mask as all the other kinds. Not that isolation can't help self-esteem, but if it's done without the proper mindset, it means we don't connect with other people enough. In other words, we see people as threats rather than distractions; huge difference.

[MENTION=3791]knight in battle[/MENTION]

Exactly...I is about motives, about what makes us ticking...It reminded me in some way of enneagram typology (I even found essay on connection between these two). because mbti describes character, the way we furfill our needs, enneagram describes our basic needs. Horney's books describes some sort of false needs. They made me to question myself, but in a good way.

 

[knight in battle]

[MENTION=1069]Jana[/MENTION]

Nice connection. I guess the Enneagram is a nice way of summing up the different delusional needs.