RxPG - Karen Horney

Karen Horney (pronounced "Horn-eye") was a Freudian psychoanalyst (often classified as "neo-Freudian").

Like Freud, she placed great importance on childhood experiences. However, she was more concerned with social relationships, especially with parents, whereas Freud emphasized internal conflicts. She created the concept of basic anxiety, a child's insecurity and doubt when a parent is indifferent, unloving, or disparaging. This anxiety, according to Horney, leads the child to a basic hostility towards his or her parents. The child may then become neurotic as an adult.

Horney, like many later psychologists, challenged many of Freud's ideas as being misogynist, particularly his concept of penis envy. Horney countered with the claim that males perceived females as being inferior largely due to males' inability to give birth (this is the converse of "penis envy").