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The theories of Horney and Kohut possess clear parallelism-so clear, in fact, that once the discrete theoretical bases are taken into account, the observations upon which these respective theories are formulated might easily be substituted. Horney and Kohut seemed to have treated the same kind of patients, experienced the same therapeutic difficulties, and, in some important ways, reached the same conclusions. But beyond this, the therapeutic approaches possess different emphasis, and this, I believe, is based on a different view of the rules of formation and regulation of intrapsychic structure. So although the purpose of this paper is a discussion of the parallelisms between Horney and Kohut, this discussion entails metatheoretical issues of general significance to theory construction. Perhaps differences in these issues, more than observation, are responsible for differences in therapeutic technique and emphasis which separate Horney's approach from Kohut's.
Just as Freud's drive-reductionist psychology with its forces, counterforces, energies, and chathexes was influenced, if not inspired, by the scientific explanation of the Victorian period, so Horney's descriptive structuralism was influenced, if not inspired, by the social and life sciences of the post-Edwardian era.1-3 The contrast between psychological explanation of the Victorian and post-Edwardian period is a remarkable example of dialectical