Away, Against, Toward: The 3 Neurotic Trends

A child is small. It starts out life mostly dependent on others for survival, essentially helpless and at the mercy of the people around him.

Image by mulan via Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0]

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Now, to this child one of two things may happen. On the one hand, the child may experience genuine warmth and affection from his parents. This satisfies the child’s need for a sense of security, and allows the child to gain the impression that the world is essentially a good place where he is accepted for who he is and where his real feelings are valued. In this scenario, all is well and good—normal development is facilitated.

On the other hand, if the child is not as lucky, he may instead encounter what psychoanalytic theorist Karen Horney called the basic evil—indifference, hatred, or rejection from his parents. Maybe he is ridiculed, humiliated, or isolated from others. Maybe promises made to him often remain unfulfilled. Maybe he is subjected to hostility in the form of unfair punishment or downright violence. Or maybe he experiences subtle signs of rejection such as obvious preference for a sibling. In any way, these attitudes and actions may engender in the child a feeling of being unwanted and unloved, creating the condition for the emergence of what Horney called basic anxiety.

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Basic anxiety is at the cornerstone of Horney’s theory of personality. She describes it as “the feeling the child has of being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile world.” Now take a moment and try to imagine the terrible nature and severity of this psychological threat. Imagine you are this child. You are small, alone, and helpless in a world you perceive to be “out to abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate, betray…” How would you feel? More importantly, how would you respond to this threat?

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Image by Jerry Bono via Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0]

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Horney theorized that the child in this situation adopts certain strategies of defense, as an attempt to reduce basic anxiety and restore a sense of security. However, because these strategies often come to prevent the child from relating to others in an authentic way, they become unproductive and alienating. They come to be what Horney called neurotic needs, with the term ‘neurotic’ here pertaining to the irrational, inappropriate, compulsive, and rigid nature of these needs. These neurotic needs are said to eventually get woven into the personality of the individual, serve to alienate a person from their “real self,” and will be evident in their interactions with others as an adult.

Horney identified three general categories of these neurotic needs: (1) moving toward people, (2) moving against people, and (3) moving away from people.

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1. Moving toward people

 “If I give in, I shall not be hurt.”

This is what is also known as the compliant solution. Those who move toward people try to reduce their basic anxiety by “gaining affection and approval and controlling others through their dependency.” What appeals most to them is love, but they don’t move toward people out of genuine love. Rather, they move toward people in an attempt to shield themselves from intense feelings of helplessness. They do this either by desperately trying to please others, or by seeking a powerful partner capable of taking responsibility for their lives.

Seeing themselves as humble, unselfish, and loving, compliant people readily subordinate themselves to others. Rather than assert themselves or make demands, they are content to accept however they’re being seen or treated by other people.

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2. Moving against people

 “If I have power, none will hurt me.”

Those who adopt the strategy of moving against people carry out the expansive solutions. They respond to basic anxiety by striving to appear superior, perfect, or ruthless. What appeals most to them is mastery; they feel the need to achieve success, power, or prestige as a way to counter the hostility they perceive the world has against them. Horney identified three expansive solutions: (a) narcissistic, (b) perfectionistic, and (c) arrogant-vindictive.

a. Narcissistic

The narcissistic solution attracts those who were gifted, favored, and admired as children. It suits those who are convinced they’re destined to win at everything and need the constant admiration of others to affirm their superior estimate of themselves. They’re compulsively driven to appear superior and thus tend to go on endless monologues of their wonderful qualities and importance.

b. Perfectionistic

Those drawn to the perfectionistic solution take great pride in their extremely high standards of morality and intellect. They feel that because of their dutiful adherence to being fair, just, and well-behaved, they are entitled to fair treatment by fate itself. Thus, to perfectionistic people, success simply represents a rightful badge of their virtue, while failure and misfortune are taken as a betrayal by life itself or a cause for self-condemnation.

c. Arrogant-vindictive

The arrogant-vindictive solution appeals to people who have been treated harshly in childhood and feel a need to get even for the abuses they’ve suffered. They make every effort to appear hard and tough, as they consider the world an arena where “the strong annihilate the weak.” Thus, they tend to be competitive and ruthless in the way they relate to people, needing to defeat others in order to prove their power and unassailability.

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3. Moving away from people

 “If I withdraw, nothing can hurt me.”

Those drawn to move away from people have adopted the solution known as detachment. Mainly affected by feelings of isolation, detached people try to remedy basic anxiety by striving to build a world of their own, not needing anyone and being perfectly capable of taking care of their needs all on their own. Their basic reasoning behind this is that if they don’t ever bother or need anyone, then they can’t be rejected. They thus have a compulsive need to put emotional distance between themselves and others, and find freedom, peace, and self-sufficiency appealing above everything else.

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It’s worth noting that the basic motivations underlying these three trends also apply to normal (non-neurotic) individuals. Everyone has needs for affection, personal achievement, and independence; everyone moves toward, against, and away from people throughout their lives. The difference is that while in neurotic development the person tends to stick to a single trend in a compulsive and indiscriminate manner, in normal development the person acquires the ability to move in all three directions — flexibly and appropriately.

Horney’s theory thus highlights how mental health really is about the capacity to adjust, to the world outside and to the self within. It is an acceptance of struggle and problems as part of life and ways to growth. It is also a capacity for authenticity, a forgiveness of the self for all its flaws and shortcomings, a restoration of the person to what Horney called the “real self.”

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For people who have come to know and accept their real selves are able to love without feeling the need to subordinate themselves or appease others at their own expense. They are able to seek mastery without needing to exploit others or to gain admiration or power through it. They are capable of being independent without needing to cut themselves off from the world.

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I like Horney’s theory because it reminds me to be better at being able to adjust. It reminds me to look more closely at whether I am compulsively moving away from, against, or toward people—and to try to move more flexibly, more appropriately given the situation.

Most importantly, it reminds me that my real self could not be found by securing love from others, by achieving perfection or power, or by attaining absolute freedom and self-sufficiency. Rather, my real self could only be found if I resist the crutch offered by such neurotic strategies and strive instead to be fully open to knowing and accepting that self—flaws, ordinariness, and all. ♥

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“The release of the real self…is a triumph of the ordinary… In simply being herself with all her capabilities and flaws, a person comes to realize that she does not have to be extraordinary in order to be worthwhile.” ~ Westkott, 1986

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