Attitudes toward Disability: Horney's Theory Applied

There are some visions during one's life that get imprinted in the mind and stay forever. One of those visions for me is of Karen Horney floating onto the stage of the New School auditorium1 in her deep purple gown and contrasting white hair. She would take her place at the podium, and in a few moments, silence befell the audience. More memorable for me were her eyes, which shone forth to wherever one was seated, and I was sure this was a woman fulfilled. Whether this was so or not, Karen Horney was inspirational for me and ranked among the few greats who influenced my life. As a young student I took notes fervently, returned home, and typed away. Her concepts proved applicable and most useful for self-insight as well as for psychotherapeutic technique. Although I studied further and pursued Freudian theory, Karen Horney's teachings remain forever imbedded-for after all, she was my first analytic teacher.

Those were the years of The Neurotic Personality of Our Time and Our Inner Conflicts, and psychology students were debating theories and finding themselves or friends on every other page. Now that I had her as a teacher I could grasp her concepts in a more objective and broader sense, concepts which in later years automatically came to me and aided me in a research project which became my Ph.D. dissertation.

A Study of Attitudes toward the Physically Disabled Based on Horneyan Concepts

I had been working with the physically disabled, reading and hearing about how they experienced prejudice. It was known that the disabled were transgressed against in many ways: ostracized, humiliated, denied equal job opportunity, and so on. There were various expressions from the