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Karen Horney did not write a book on feminine psychology. A book by this title exists, but it is a collection of fourteen papers Horney wrote pertaining to feminine psychology.1 These are her early papers, written mainly in German, between 1922 and 1933. This collection was translated and published in 1967, and edited by Harold Kelman, in response to the growing interest in feminine psychology. It was hailed by the feminine movement, which recognized in her an early champion of their cause. Thus these early papers did not become well known until after 1967.
From the perspective of the development of Horney's contribution to psychoanalysis, these early papers represent stepping stones toward gradually evolving her own theories of neurotic development, theories she presented in five books between 1937 and 1950. These stepping stones are in the area of female psychology, but the issues dealt with aspects of psychoanalytic theory that troubled her. Once she was able to sever her umbilical cord to the libidinal theory and advance her own comprehensive theory, any reference to feminine psychology disappears.
These papers make fascinating reading. Her style is lively; her questions are clear; theoretical issues are illustrated by clinical vignettes. We are taken back in time and allowed to participate in her journey of exploration. We learn about the then-prevalent psychoanalytic view of female development; but, more than that, we find ourselves in a psychoanalytic world where issues of castration, of having or not having a penis, of penis envy or, respectively, womb envy, the denial of the vagina are discussed with a literalness and an intensity alien to us in 1990. Psychoanalysis was a young science and, especially in Berlin, the atmosphere was one of excitement and exploration, and it stimulated the ferment of many new