Observations on Neurotic Traits in the College Teacher

Karen Horney1 added enormous insight to our understanding of human behavior. It was her premise that when we are made consistently anxious we often defend ourselves by adopting rigid, driven behavioral styles. These neurotic styles create the comforting illusion that we are perfect and, therefore, invulnerable to further psychic assault. Horney pointed out that any adult situation that mobilized “basic anxiety” (being alone and helpless in a hostile world) leads to an exacerbation of the particular neurotic style adopted by the individual. Thus, if an individual's self-esteem is threatened, he is often likely to respond to the threat by adopting the viewpoint that he is perfect and, therefore, the problems affecting him have their sources in others than himself.

An individual seeking to maintain a gloriously perfect image1 responds to threatening situations stereotypically. He is unable to analyze the source of the threat or cope with it very effectively. As he postures grandly or humbly, makes neurotic demands on others and becomes tyrannized by what he “should” be doing, he adds to the very threat that initiated his neurotic response. A vicious cycle sets in of ever-escalating anxieties and ever-more-rigid neurotic defenses. The neurotic behavior, with its tensions, obsessions, and self-hatred creates enormous physical and mental burdens for the individual so afflicted. The cycle is broken only when the individual admits to his real feelings and can separate true weakness from failures induced by situations with which coping is truly difficult.

Horney's theory is well suited to describe my experiences as a college professor in a large urban-based community college in New York City. The paper is motivated by the belief that most classroom teachers have fallen upon hard times and that the problems encountered in the classroom provide a devastating experience for teacher and student alike. Often the grandiose,