Horneyan analysis

Domain I · Psychodynamic & depth psychology · Karen Horney · 1942

What it is

Horneyan analysis is a psychoanalytic therapy of character. It is not a manualised protocol. Horney left technique as lectures and an unfinished book, so the procedures below are drawn from her lectures and books, and their ordering into steps is partly.

Format

• Horney named no fixed number of phases. The sequence below follows the course she describes in NHG ch. 14 ("The Road of Psychoanalytic Therapy") and that Paris summarises as disillusionment, then the central inner conflict, then oscillation, then termination. Labels 0–4 are.
• Format.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Your own pull to accept idealisation or to compete.
• Clever intellectual self-explanations without change.
• Treating blockage as bad will. It is the defence doing its job.
• The analyst being thrown by oscillations. Premature celebration.
• Patients experiencing the suppressed side as alien and frightening.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.