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It is hard to believe that 50 years have gone by since Karen Horney, M.D., founded the American Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Her contributions to the field of psychoanalysis and psychiatry in general have survived the test of time, forming a link between the old school of psychoanalytic thought and the move toward a biopsychosocial approach to the treatment of psychiatric patients.
Those who knew Karen Horney best found it difficult to account for her eagerness, creativity, indomitable spirit, originality, self-reliance, and strength in advancing her ideas in the face of professional opposition. Her daughter, Marianne Eckardt, stated,
“She was not one to worry about whether her thoughts would be right. She first thought her thoughts. She was always questioning and working and debating and discussing. And that went on throughout her life. She knew the inner satisfaction of thinking and debating. She was a beautiful lecturer. She always had notes, but she never read her lectures, and they always made a circle. She was at home in her own creative concepts.”
Horney's creative concepts were expressed in a series of articles and books dedicated to the advancement of psychoanalysis and based on her own experiences in analytic work with patients and with herself. She stated, “Progress in psychoanalysis can only be made the hard way by including ourselves and our difficulties. If we remain static and adverse to change, our theories are bound to become barren and dogmatic.”
No one would ever accuse Horney of forming theories that were “barren and dogmatic.” Although she advanced the same ideas repeatedly, they were expanded, elaborated, refined, and illustrated eloquently with exampies