Epistemological Contribution of the Horney Theory to Group Psychoanalysis

Although Horney does not seem to have a specific place in the history of group psychoanalysis, her theory offers the necessary bases for the construction of an epistemology of the group. Like other Neo-Freudians, she almost completely abandoned Freud's biologism in order to find a theory of relations. The historical-relational aspect of the individual's life is in the forefront of her theoretical propositions. Her philosophy is oriented toward the development and affirmation of life, as well as toward the search for inner freedom. The family environment, as a mediator of culture, offers the basis and a preliminary outline of individual dynamics and conflicts. Horney's conceptualization of human development is that of a single process determined by relationships with others and by the deep reciprocal influence of the individual and his cultural environment. Her theory sets out to overcome the reductionism and the rigid determinism that were present in classical psychoanalytic theory of the times, in favor of a more complex interactive dynamic that regulates the relationship of the personality with its world.

Man is freed in this fashion from ahistorical and natural laws that would have preceded him, so that he can turn into the protagonist of his own life, becoming able to act creatively and in the context of his own project. In Horney's epistemology, four points are fundamental:

1. The development of a language of relations

2. The holism and creative power of the personality

3. The three basic modes of relating to the other

4. The determining aspect of the culture of early environment for each human being

The terms self and other are always understood in a relational situation by Horney. If on the one hand the importance of the real self is emphasized, on the other hand the task of fostering or obstructing (which constitutes the seeds of neurosis) the self-realization of the individual is clearly