Concept
Tyranny of the should
Karen Horney's name for the system of inner dictates by which a neurotic person drives himself or herself to become the idealized self: absolute and often contradictory demands about what one should feel, think and do, held regardless of what is feasible and enforced by self-hate when they are not met. She distinguished them from genuine moral standards, which are freely chosen and leave room for growth.
- Introduced by
- Karen Horney
- Key works
- 2
- Related
- Idealized image
introduced by
- Karen Horney 1950 The shoulds appear in Our Inner Conflicts as a sign of the gap between the idealized image and the actual self; Neurosis and Human Growth names them the tyranny of the should and gives them a chapter.
derives from
- Idealized image The shoulds are the demands by which the neurotic tries to close the gap between the idealized image and the actual self.