Concept
Real self
In Karen Horney's late theory, the central inner force, common to all people yet unique in each, that is the source of spontaneous feeling, genuine wishes and growth; she distinguished it both from the actual self, the person as they are at a given moment, and from the idealized self. Neurosis is, in her account, an alienation from the real self, and therapy aims to free its forces toward self-realization.
- Introduced by
- Karen Horney
- Key works
- 2
- Related
- Idealized image
introduced by
- Karen Horney 1945 The real self is set against the idealized image in Our Inner Conflicts and becomes the centre of Neurosis and Human Growth, whose chapter on alienation from self treats neurosis as estrangement from it.
opposes
- Idealized image Horney defines the two against each other: the more the idealized image takes hold, the more the real self is dimmed.