A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney


Book Description

Karen Horney (1885-1952) is one of the great figures in psychoanalysis, an independent thinker who dared to take issue with Freud's views on women. One of the first female medical students in Germany, and one of the first doctors in Berlin to undergo psychoanalytic training, she emigrated to the United States in 1932 and became a leading figure in American psychoanalysis. She wrote several important books, including Neurosis and Human Growth and Our Inner Conflicts. Horney was a brilliant psychologist of women, whose work anticipated current interest in the narcissistic personality. "An excellent book, sophisticated in its judgments, and with a candor that does justice to [Quinn's] courageous subject." — Phyllis Grosskurth, The New York Review of Books "A richly contexted, thoroughly informed, and admirably forthright account of Horney's development and contribution." — Justin Kaplan "Excellent, sympathetic but not adulatory, clear about the theories and factions... rich in anecdotes." — Rosemary Dinnage, The New York Times Book Review "The whole book is wonderfully balanced. A terrific achievement." — Anton O. Kris, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute




Neurosis and Human Growth


Book Description

In Neurosis and Human Growth, Dr. Horney discusses the neurotic process as a special form of the human development, the antithesis of healthy growth. She unfolds the different stages of this situation, describing neurotic claims, the tyranny or inner dictates and the neurotic's solutions for relieving the tensions of conflict in such emotional attitudes as domination, self-effacement, dependency, or resignation. Throughout, she outlines with penetrating insight the forces that work for and against the person's realization of his or her potentialities. First Published in 1950. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




Feminine Psychology


Book Description

In this collection of papers, Karen Horney brings to the subject of femininity her acute clinical observations and rigorous testing of hypotheses. The topics she discusses include frigidity, maternal conflicts, distrust between the sexes and feminine masochism.




Self-Analysis


Book Description

First Published in 1999. Psychoanalysis first developed as a method of therapy in the strict medical sense. Freud had discovered that certain circumscribed disorders that have no discernible organic basis-such as hysterical convulsions, phobias, depressions, drug addictions, functional stomach upsets --can be cured by uncovering the unconscious factors that underlie them. In the course of time disturbances of this kind were summarily called neurotic. Therefore humility as well as hope is required in any discussion of the possibility of psychoanalytic self-examination. It is the object of this book to raise this question seriously, with all due consideration for the difficulties involved.




Women Beyond Freud: New Concepts Of Feminine Psychology


Book Description

First published in 1994. This volume contains the proceedings of a historic meeting, attended by over 2,000 mental health professionals and lay people, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Centre in New York City. Each contributor to this book offers unique insight into the seminal work of Karen Horney, one of the first psychoanalysts to question Freud's male-centred theories and clinical practices.; The book includes accounts of the formative girlhood experiences that awakened Horney's spirit of independence and the intellectual and cultural currents of her time that influenced her work. A contribution by a Preeminent Sex Therapist Challenges The Notion That Liberated Women threaten the potency of men. Other contributors define the characteristics of relationships that foster or hinder women's psychological growth and discuss the conflicts faced by adolescent girls as they become aware of gender differences.




Principles of Psychotherapy


Book Description

Generations of clinicians have valued Principles of Psychotherapy for its breadth of coverage and accessibility and the author's ability to gather many elements into a unified presentation. The Third Edition presents the conceptual and empirical foundations of evidence-based practice perspectives of psychodynamic theory. It also offers case examples illustrating what a therapist might say and do in various circumstances. In addition, it includes discussion of broader psychodynamic perspectives on short-term therapy. Mental health professionals will benefit from the revised edition s inclusion of empirically based guidelines for conducting effective psychotherapy.




Eleanor and Hick


Book Description

A warm, intimate account of the love between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok—a relationship that, over more than three decades, transformed both women's lives and empowered them to play significant roles in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history In 1932, as her husband assumed the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the First Lady with dread. By that time, she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life—now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next thirty years, until Eleanor’s death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship: They were, at different points, lovers, confidantes, professional advisors, and caring friends. They couldn't have been more different. Eleanor had been raised in one of the nation’s most powerful political families and was introduced to society as a debutante before marrying her distant cousin, Franklin. Hick, as she was known, had grown up poor in rural South Dakota and worked as a servant girl after she escaped an abusive home, eventually becoming one of the most respected reporters at the AP. Her admiration drew the buttoned-up Eleanor out of her shell, and the two quickly fell in love. For the next thirteen years, Hick had her own room at the White House, next door to the First Lady. These fiercely compassionate women inspired each other to right the wrongs of the turbulent era in which they lived. During the Depression, Hick reported from the nation’s poorest areas for the WPA, and Eleanor used these reports to lobby her husband for New Deal programs. Hick encouraged Eleanor to turn their frequent letters into her popular and long-lasting syndicated column "My Day," and to befriend the female journalists who became her champions. When Eleanor’s tenure as First Lady ended with FDR's death, Hick pushed her to continue to use her popularity for good—advice Eleanor took by leading the UN’s postwar Human Rights Commission. At every turn, the bond these women shared was grounded in their determination to better their troubled world. Deeply researched and told with great warmth, Eleanor and Hick is a vivid portrait of love and a revealing look at how an unlikely romance influenced some of the most consequential years in American history.




Marie Curie: A Life


Book Description

Marie Curie was long idealized as a selfless and dedicated scientist, not entirely of this world. But Quinn's Marie Curie is, on the contrary, a woman of passion — born in Warsaw under the repressive regime of the Russian czars, outspokenly committed to the cause of a free Poland, deeply in love with her husband Pierre but also, after his tragic death, capable of loving a second time and of standing up against the cruel, xenophobic attacks which resulted from that love. This biography gives a full and lucid account of Marie and Pierre Curie’s scientific discoveries, placing them within the revelatory discoveries of the age. At the same time, it provides a vivid account of Marie Curie’s practical genius: the X-Ray mobiles she created to save French soldiers' lives during World War I, as well as her remarkable ability to raise funds and create a laboratory that drew researchers to Paris from all over the world. It is a story which transforms Marie Curie from an bloodless icon into a woman of passion and courage. "Quinn's portrait of Curie is rich and captivating. Quinn strives to peel back... layers of myth and idealization that have grown up around the physicist... She succeeds beautifully. Quinn has written a worthy successor to her previous work, the award-winning biography of American psychiatrist Karen Horney." — Washington Post Book World (page 1) "A touching, three-dimensional portrait of the Polish-born scientist and two-time Nobel Prize winner." — Kirkus "I've read many biographies of Marie Curie and Susan Quinn's is magnificent. It's so complete and so evocative that I can't imagine anyone coming away from reading it without feeling they actually know Marie Curie." — Alan Alda "Quinn portrays a woman who was both independent and ambitious, in a society that was unprepared for either. The result is a fresh, powerful new biography of a very human Marie Curie... This is an exemplary work, rich in the details and connections that bring a person and her era to life. It is certain to be this generations' definitive biography of Marie Curie." — Science "Quinn breaks ground in her detailed description, drawn from newly available papers, of Marie's life after Pierre's accidental death in 1906. At first so grief-stricken she neglected her two daughters, Irene and Eve, Marie later had a love affair with French scientist Paul Langevin. Because Langevin was married, Marie was vilified by the French press and was almost denied the 1911 Nobel Prize for chemistry." —Publishers Weekly "Susan Quinn's excellent biography gives a lucid account of Curie's contribution to our understanding of 'things'... but Quinn also draws on new material to paint a more rounded and attractive picture of Curie the person... For Marie, the enchantment of her science never waned, and it is this enchantment which Quinn's biography communicates so well." — London Observer




Freud's Free Clinics


Book Description

Today many view Sigmund Freud as an elitist whose psychoanalytic treatment was reserved for the intellectually and financially advantaged. However, in this new work Elizabeth Ann Danto presents a strikingly different picture of Freud and the early psychoanalytic movement. Danto recovers the neglected history of Freud and other analysts' intense social activism and their commitment to treating the poor and working classes. Danto's narrative begins in the years following the end of World War I and the fall of the Habsburg Empire. Joining with the social democratic and artistic movements that were sweeping across Central and Western Europe, analysts such as Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Erik Erikson, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Helene Deutsch envisioned a new role for psychoanalysis. These psychoanalysts saw themselves as brokers of social change and viewed psychoanalysis as a challenge to conventional political and social traditions. Between 1920 and 1938 and in ten different cities, they created outpatient centers that provided free mental health care. They believed that psychoanalysis would share in the transformation of civil society and that these new outpatient centers would help restore people to their inherently good and productive selves. Drawing on oral histories and new archival material, Danto offers vivid portraits of the movement's central figures and their beliefs. She explores the successes, failures, and challenges faced by free institutes such as the Berlin Poliklinik, the Vienna Ambulatorium, and Alfred Adler's child-guidance clinics. She also describes the efforts of Wilhelm Reich's Sex-Pol, a fusion of psychoanalysis and left-wing politics, which provided free counseling and sex education and aimed to end public repression of private sexuality. In addition to situating the efforts of psychoanalysts in the political and cultural contexts of Weimar Germany and Red Vienna, Danto also discusses the important treatments and methods developed during this period, including child analysis, short-term therapy, crisis intervention, task-centered treatment, active therapy, and clinical case presentations. Her work illuminates the importance of the social environment and the idea of community to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.




Karen Horney


Book Description

Karen Horney is regarded by many as one of the most important psychoanalytic thinkers of the 20th century. This book argues that Horney's inner struggles, in particular her compulsive need for men, induced her to embark on a search for self-understanding.