The Neurotic Personality Of Our Time (International Library of Psychology) by KAREN HORNEY

Author:KAREN HORNEY
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781136341649
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

1 Robert Briffault, The Mothers, London and New York, 1927.

2 Cases like these, with definite disturbances in the emotional sphere coexisting with a capacity for full sexual satisfaction, have always been a puzzle to some analysts, but the fact that they do not fit into the libido theory does not keep them from existing.

· CHAPTER 10 ·

The Quest for Power, Prestige and Possession

THE QUEST for affection is one way frequently used in our culture for obtaining reassurance against anxiety. The quest for power, prestige and possession is another.

I should probably explain why I discuss power, prestige and possession as aspects of a single problem. In detail it certainly makes a big difference for a personality whether the prevailing tendency is for one or another of these goals. Which of the goals prevails in the neurotic’s striving for reassurance depends on external circumstances as well as on differences in individual gifts and psychic structure. If I deal with them as a unity it is because they all have something in common which distinguishes them from the need for affection. Winning affection means obtaining reassurance through intensified contact with others, while striving for power, prestige and possession means obtaining reassurance through loosening of the contact with others and through fortifying one’s own position.

The wish to dominate, to win prestige, to acquire wealth, is certainly not in itself a neurotic trend, just as the wish for affection is not in itself neurotic. In order to understand the characteristics of the neurotic striving in this direction it should be compared with the normal. The feeling of power, for example, may in a normal person be born of the realization of his own superior strength, whether it be physical strength or ability, mental capacities, maturity or wisdom. Or his striving for power may be connected with some particular cause : family, political or professional group, native land, a religious or scientific idea. The neurotic striving for power, however, is born out of anxiety, hatred and feelings of inferiority. To put it categorically, the normal striving for power is born of strength, the neurotic of weakness.

A cultural factor is also involved. Individual power, prestige and possession do not play a role in every culture. With the Pueblo Indians, for instance, striving for prestige is definitely discouraged, and there is but little difference in individual possessions, and thus this striving too has little importance. In that culture it would be meaningless to strive for any kind of dominance as a means of reassurance. That neurotics in our culture choose this way results from the fact that in our social structure power, prestige and possession can give a feeling of greater security.

In searching for the conditions which produce a striving for these ends it becomes apparent that such a striving usually develops only when it has proved impossible to find reassurance for the underlying anxiety through affection. I shall cite an example which shows how such a striving can develop, in the form of ambition, when the need for affection is thwarted.

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