Karen Horney Quotes

21 Sourced Quotes

Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist... The therapy effected by life itself is not, however, within one's control. Neither hardships nor friendships nor religious experience can be arranged to meet the needs of the particular individual. Life as a therapist is ruthless; circumstances that are helpful to one neurotic may entirely crush another.

Karen Horney
Miracles occur in psychoanalysis as seldom as anywhere else.

Karen Horney
It would not be going too far to assert that... conflict confronts every woman who ventures upon a career of her own and who is... unwilling to pay for her daring with the renunciation of her femininity.

Karen Horney
To search for truth about self is as valuable as to search for truth in other areas of life.

Karen Horney
Through the eclipse of large areas of the self, by repression and inhibition as well as by idealization and externalization, the individual loses sight of himself; he feels, if he does not actually become, like a shadow without weight and substance.

Karen Horney
The conception of what is normal varies not only with the culture but also within the same culture, in the course of time.

Karen Horney
Let me say to begin with: It is not neurotic to have conflict... Conflicts within ourselves are an integral part of human life.

Karen Horney
We may feel genuinely concerned about world conditions, though such a concern should drive us into action and not into a depression.

Karen Horney
That many-faceted thing called love succeeds in building bridges from the loneliness on this shore to the loneliness on the other one. These bridges can be of great beauty, but they are rarely built for eternity, and frequently they cannot tolerate too heavy a burden without collapsing.

Karen Horney
The idea of a finished human product not only appears presumptuous but even, in my opinion, lacks any strong appeal. Life is struggle and striving, development and growth - and analysis is one of the means that can help in this process. Certainly its positive accomplishments are important, but also the striving itself is of intrinsic value.

Karen Horney
The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one's feelings, one's work, one's beliefs.

Karen Horney
The neurotic... feels caught in a cellar with many doors, and whichever door he opens leads only into new darkness. And all the time he knows that others are walking outside in sunshine.

Karen Horney
Every person, to the extent that he is neurotic, is like an airplane directed by remote control.

Karen Horney
Like all sciences and all valuations, the psychology of women has hitherto been considered only from the point of view of men.

Karen Horney
Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

Karen Horney
It is amazing how obtuse otherwise intelligent patients can become when it is a matter of seeing the inevitability of cause and effect in psychic matters. I am thinking of rather self-evident connections such as these: if we want to achieve something, we must put in work; if we want to become independent, we must strive toward assuming responsibility for ourselves. Or: so long as we are arrogant, we will be vulnerable. Or: so long as we do not love ourselves, we cannot possibly believe that others love us, and must by necessity be suspicious toward any assertion of love. Patients presented with such sequences of cause and effect may start to argue, to become befogged or evasive.

Karen Horney
To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown.

Karen Horney
There's still such chaos in me. Still so little firmly outlined. Just like my face: a formless mass that only takes on shape through the expression of the moment. The searching for our selves is the most agonizing

Karen Horney
Is not the tremendous strength in men of the impulse to creative work in every field precisely due to their feeling of playing a relatively small part in the creation of living beings, which constantly impels them to an overcompensation in achievement?

Karen Horney
Because it corresponds to a vital need, love is overvalued in our culture. It becomes a phantom — like success — carrying with it the illusion that it is a solution for all problems.

Karen Horney
The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women's self-respect.

Karen Horney