History As early as 1936,
Erich Fromm had been independently regretting that psychoanalysts "did not concern themselves with the variety of life experience…and therefore did not try to explain psychic structure as determined by
social structure."
Karen Horney, too, "emphasised the role
culture exerts in the development of personality and downplayed the classical driven features outlined by Freud." Doctor and
psychotherapist Harald Schultz-Hencke (1892–1953) was thoroughly busy with questions like impulse and inhibition and with the therapy of
psychoses as well as the
interpretation of dreams. He worked with
Matthias Göring in his institute (
Deutsches Institut für psychologische Forschung und Psychotherapie), and created the name
Neopsychoanalyse in 1945. The "Neo-Freudian revolt against the orthodox theory of
instincts" was thus anchored in a sense of what
Harry Stack Sullivan termed "our incredibly culture-ridden life." By their writings, and "in accessible prose, Fromm, Horney, and others mounted a cultural and social
critique which became almost
conventional wisdom." Through informal and more formal institutional links, such as the
William Alanson White Institute, as well as through likeness of ideas, the neo-Freudians made up a cohesively distinctive and influential psychodynamic movement.
Basic anxiety Karen Horney theorized that to deal with
basic anxiety, the individual has three options: •
Moving toward others: Accept the situation and become dependent on others. This strategy may entail an exaggerated desire for approval or affection. •
Moving against others: Resist the situation and become aggressive. This strategy may involve an exaggerated need for power, exploitation of others, recognition, or achievement. •
Moving away from others: Withdraw from others and become isolated. This strategy may involve an exaggerated need for self-sufficiency, privacy, or independence.
Basic personality The neo-Freudian
Abram Kardiner was primarily interested in learning how a specific society acquires adaptation concerning its environment. He does this by forming within its members what he names a "
basic personality." The "basic personality" can initially be traced to the operation of primary institutions. It ultimately creates clusters of unconscious motivations in the specific individual "which in turn are projected in the form of secondary institutions," such as reality systems. The basic personality finds expression in the secondary institutions. ==Criticism==