User:EYarde1/Coping strategies

The German Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney defined four so-called coping strategies to define interpersonal relations, one describing psychologically healthy individuals, the others describing neurotic states.

Neurotic Needs

Horney investigated these patterns of neurotic needs. Everyone needs these things, but the neurotic's need them more than the normal person. If the neurotic does not experience these needs, he or she will experience anxiety. The ten needs are: 1. The neurotic need for affection and approval, the need to please others and be liked. 2. The neurotic need for a partner who will take over one's life. The idea that love will solve all of one's problems. 3. The neurotic need to restrict one's life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with little, to be inconspicuous. Or to simplify one's life. 4. The neurotic need for power, for control over others, for a facade of omnipotence. The neurotic is desperate for strength and dominance. 5. The neurotic need to exploit others and get the better of them. 6. The neurotic need for social recognition or prestigge. These people are concerned with apperances and popularity more so than the normal person. 7. The neurotic need for personal admiration. 8. The neurotic need for personal achievement. 9. The neurotic need for self sufficiency and independence. 10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability, in other words obsessed with being perfect and scared of being flawed. Note to self, this information was taken from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/horney.html, I need to figure out how to cite this information correctly.

Coping strategies

Moving with

These are the strategies in which psychologically healthy people develop relationships. It involves compromise. In order to move with, there must be communication, agreement, disagreement, compromise, and decisions.

Karen Horney describes the other strategies as a neurotic. This means that they are unhealthy strategies people utilize in order to protect themselves.

Moving toward

The individual moves towards those perceived as a threat to avoid retribution and getting hurt. The argument is, "If I give in, I won't get hurt." This means that: if I give everyone I see as a potential threat whatever they want, I won't be injured (physically or emotionally).

Moving against

The individual threatens those perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt.

Moving away

The individual distances themselves from anyone perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt. The argument is, "If I do not let anyone close to me, I won't get hurt." A neurotic, according to Horney desires to be distant because of being abused. If they can be the extreme introvert, no one will ever develop a relationship with them. If there is no one around, nobody can hurt them. These "moving away" people fight personality, so they often come across as cold or shallow. This is their strategy. They emotionally remove themselves from society.