A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney (Radcliffe Biography Series)

There are two particularly interesting points of focus in Quinn's book, the more obvious being the development of Horney's work as the first feminist psychiatrist (and Freudian psychoanalyst) at a time when psychoanalysis was not acceptable to the new specialty of psychiatry (that itself had only just become acceptable to neurology by declaring itself to be a specialty of brain diseases). The second theme, a natural concomitant of the first, is the revelation that Europe just before the turn of the century--the time and place where Horney was coming of age and beginning her study of medicine--was, contrary to popular belief, rather sexually open (at least among the intelligentsia) and a time of great advances in women's rights. Her life, from her first diary entries in 1898 at age 13 to her death in 1942, was a struggle to dissect herself to achieve self-understanding. Her earliest work was a slight divergence from pure Freudian theory; her later work was a true Horneyan theory, derived less from the brilliant organization of Freud and more from her life experience as a woman and a human being. From the beginning, Horney measured the validity of Freud's theories against her own experience, concluding that the female experience was worthy of its own body of theoretical work. Quinn has allowed Horney to be human, painstakingly documenting her genius, as well as her chaotic personal life that clearly furnished much of the material for developing her own psychoanalytic theory.

This book is not only well-researched and referenced, but written in a pleasant narrative style that takes the reader through key events in the life of psychoanalyst and neoanalyst Karen Horney. Deft use of quotations from journals, letters, and interviews brings to life not only Horney herself as she moves through the stages of her life, but the historical background in which she taught, analyzed, loved, and struggled to trust the voice (in Carol Gilligan's sense of that word) which even Freud tried to disparage, emanating as it did from a woman--or as many of Horney's opponents were forced to acknowledge, from THAT woman.

Horney, a brilliant analyst, did stupid things on occasion, as all of us do. She could be impatient, unempathic, and impulsive. Her cheery humanistic view of human nature may have led her at times to underestimate what Jung called the shadow side of psyche. Nevertheless, the impact and originality of her ideas inspired generations of analysts and sympathetic readers all over the world. She refused to keep silent in the face of dissent, and thousands, perhaps millions, of us are the better for her courage.

The author mentions that Horney had a gift for inspiring the feeling, "She's talking about me!" More than twenty years ago, I picked up a book more or less at random one day, read it, and have been training in psychology--my own therapy, BA, MS, and now PhD--ever since. The book was Karen Horney's SELF-ANALYSIS. This fine biography helped me understand more about the analyst who stood by spiritually at the start of my own vocation.