Reading Guide for “Our Inner Conflicts” by Karen Horney (pp. 23 – 81)

24 points total

(2 points for each multiple choice; 6 points for the short answer)

Reminder: Please type your answers to #10 and respond in full sentences/paragraphs to this question. Also, please turn in a hard copy (no emailed copies will be accepted).

  1. According to Horney, one difference between “normal” and “neurotic” conflicts is:

a.Normal conflicts have some basis in reality while neurotic conflicts are purely fantasies.

b.Neurotic conflicts are more unconscious than normal conflicts.

c.In normal conflicts, it is impossible to decide between the two contradictory issues involved. In neurotic conflicts, the conflict is really not a conflict at all because it is easy to determine which issue or impulse is the correct choice.

d.Normal conflicts are more intellectual, while neurotic conflicts are more animalistic.

  1. What is basic anxiety?

a.The feeling a child has of being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile world.

b.The anxiety that comes from inconsistencies in a person’s way of relating to him or herself and his or her world.

c.The feeling that results from the clash between our instinctual drives and the forbidding environment of family and society.

d.The feeling of fear that arises from too many choices in the environment.

  1. What causes basic anxiety?

a.A frightening family environment in early childhood

b.The feeling that the parents love each other more than they love their child

c.The feeling that the parents’ love is not genuine

d.An over sexualized relationship with one or both parents

  1. Horney believes that the development of a neurotic trend:

a.Creates the basic conflict

b.Is similar to Freud’s notion of “fixation”

c.Is like a “cry for help”

d.Is an attempt to resolve the basic conflict

  1. A person whose predominant need is to have control over others is:

a.Moving toward

b.Moving away

c.Moving against

d.Moving around

  1. Horney describes the moving ______type as like “a person in a hotel room who rarely removes the ‘Do-Not-Disturb’ sign from his door.”

a.Toward

b.Away

c.Against

d.Around

  1. A person who consciously accentuates his her needs to be loved, accepted, and needed by others is:

a.Moving toward

b.Moving away

c.Moving against

d.Moving around

  1. A moving toward individual is most profoundly repressing feelings of:

a.Depression

b.Anxiety

c.Confusion

d.Hostility

  1. Which two neurotic trends does Horney consider polar opposites?

a.Moving toward and moving away

b.Moving toward and moving against

c.Moving against and moving away

d.Moving away and moving against

  1. Which of the three neurotic trends best characterizes Will Hunting? Why?