Karen Horney Biography Essay

Psychologist Karen Horney once said, “The psychology of women hitherto actually represents a deposit of the desires and disappointments of men,” (Karen Horney Quotes). She was Psychoanalyst with many contributions to psychology. She is best known for her work in Feminine Psychology, her Theory of Neurotic Needs, and for her involvement in Neo-Freudian Psychology, (Cherry). She was born on September 16th, in 1885 in Germany, in a village outside of Hamburg, to Clotilde and Berndt Danielson. Her parent's marriage was not a happy one, her father being the captain of a ship and often off at sea, and her mother and father's opposing personalities having caused many fights, (Schultz). After having four children, her mother and father divorced and her father later remarried to a woman named Sonni. According to Horney, her father was a very strict man, despite his having taken her on trips and having brought her gifts often. The emotional detachment she felt from her father caused her to become closer with her step-mother, who is also said to be opposite of her father in demeanor, (Boeree). Karen had an eldest brother, also named Berndt, whom she became very close with. Some say she developed a crush on him and became depressed when he rejected her, while others insist it was a platonic brother-sister relationship and he just pushed her away. At the age of …show more content…
Two years later, she moved again, this time to New York, after which she returned to private practice, (Karen Horney Biography). Horney had published six books in her lifetime and an additional book of her lectures was also published. She died in New York City on December 4, 1952 at the age of 67. She left behind a legacy in the form of a foundation which was established in her name, followed by a clinic also in her name three years after her passing, (Karen Horney