The Introduction of a Feminine Psychology to Psychoanalysis: Karen Horney's Legacy*

Recent and Current feminist discourses in psychoanalysis have shown a strong interest in the early writings of Karen Horney. In her time, Horney was a pioneer in two main areas: in the discipline that was then referred to as “feminine psychology,” and in the introduction of cultural factors to psychoanalytic theory. She was remarkable for her strong voice in challenging male-dominated theory, particularly in challenging Freud. This challenge was mounted in a variety of areas, including the origins of female sexuality, the dynamics of penis envy and the Oedipus complex, and the lack of emphasis and perceived degradation of motherhood within Freud's theories. Whereas the challenge to these particular points is essential to Horney's legacy and relevant to our current discourses regarding gender, perhaps more importantly it also reveals an underlying type of thinking that introduced social and political factors into the construction of theory and how women are viewed and regarded within it.

Horney was deeply influenced by sociology, particularly the work of Georg Simmel. She succeeded in introducing it into her own psychoanalytic lexicon, thereby allowing her to integrate intrapsychic and cultural contributions in her work. In essence, this served to deconstruct Freudian theory. Quite radically for the time, Horney exposed the biases and phallocentric views that contributed to the various theoretical suppositions of that era. She was able to articulate how it was in the male society's interest to accept and support particular views of women and their development. She proposed that the psychoanalytic theory of the day was driven by male reality and was not necessarily informed by girls' or women's experience of their femininity. Horney therefore did not merely challenge