Intellectual Reunion with Karen Horney

Abstract

Among psychoanalytic references, some remain less popular than others. As an example to that is Karen Horney and her extensive contributions better known among theories of personality and feminism than in psychoanalysis, even though it was the field to which she had dedicated her professional career. This article aims to promote the work of Karen Horney, mainly based on biographical information and exposition of her theoretical work through authorial writings and commentators. Starting from disagreements and reviews of Sigmund Freud's work, her thought acted as a precursor of psychoanalysis in the United States and as propositions about female sexuality that break with patriarchal paradigms. This second point is also elucidated in her biography, as an intellectual woman born in the 19th century, when belonging in an academic career became a challenge due to the scarce presence of women in university environments, intensified by her criticisms made to parts of the theory about sexual roles of the prestigious Freud and his followers. Thus, learning about Horney's trajectory and legacy, in addition to being useful from the point of view of the history of women in science, also raises reflections on the epistemological directions for psychoanalysis.