“Needs Neurotic”
# 1
The neurotic need for affection and approval: (see The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, Chapter 6, on the need for affection): Some variations exist such, as the indiscriminate need to please others and to be liked and approved of by others. The automatic living up to the expectations of others;
Center of focus emotional in others and not in self, with their wishes and opinions the only thing that counts. Dread of self-assertion may be involved and the dread of hostility on the part of others or of hostile feelings within self.
#2
The neurotic need for a “partner” who will take over one’s life: (see New Ways in Psychoanalysis, Chapter 15, on masochism, and E. Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, Chapter on authoritarianism.
Center of focus entirely in the “partner,” who is to fulfill all expectations of life and take responsibility for good and evil, his successful manipulation becoming the predominant task; and connected is the overvaluation of “love” because “love” is supposed to solve all problems;
Dread of desertion commonly the dread of being alone relates to both childhood experiences and real dangers of separation in the present.
#3
The neurotic need to restrict one’s life within narrow borders:
Necessity to be undemanding and contented with little, and to restrict ambitions and wishes for material things; (a compulsion, often overlooked item on many psychological inventories) or may exist as a compulsive ‘necessity’ to remain inconspicuous and to take second place; often with tendency to self-belittling ones good faculties and potentialities, with a exaggerated modesty. Compulsive urge to save rather than to spend. Dread of making any demands. Dread of having to start or follow through on asserting reasonable needs and rights.
#4
The neurotic need for power: ( The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, Chapter 10, on the need for power, prestige, and possession):
Domination over others craved for its own sake; excessive and compulsive devotion to cause, duty, responsibility, a maintained and open disrespect for ’others’, their individuality, their dignity, their feelings, the only concern being their subordination in the exchange. Often acts indiscriminate have adoration for strength and contempt for any weakness in other and sometimes in one’s own self. Compulsive control issue surfaces often as a dread of uncontrollable situations; dread of anything situating them as even momentarily helplessness.
The neurotic need to control both oneself and others may indirectly assert by use of reason and foresight and rule making and thus not openly show it’s deeper domination goal. It may be useful for those who are too inhibited to exert power directly and openly. Those with this neurotic striving often offer a strong belief in the omnipotence of intelligence and reason and deny the power of emotional forces and have contempt for them. At times, they dread any recognizing of limitations to the power of reason. A feeling of fortitude may be gained from the belief in the magic power of will (like possession of a wishing ring as if reality itself is to change because they wish it so.)
#5
The neurotic need to exploit others: - and by hook or crook get the better of them, others are evaluated primarily according to whether or not they can be exploited or made use of.
Various foci of exploitation–money (bargaining amounts to a passion), ideas, sexuality, feelings, followed by pride in exploitative skill or dread of being exploited and thus of being “stupid.”
#6
The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige: (may or may not be combined with a craving for power) For many under the compulsive push of the need, things–inanimate objects, money, persons, one’s own qualities, activities, and feelings are evaluated and accepted according to their prestige enhancing values.
They may follow the use of traditional or rebellious ways of inciting attention, envy or admiration, potentially magnified by concepts of losing face, caste, status any humiliation hurts, whether or not caused through external circumstances or through factors from within.
#7
The neurotic need for personal admiration: Inflated image of self (narcissism);
Need to be admired not for what one possesses or presents in the public eye, but for the imagined self:
Self-evaluation is dependent on living up to this image and on admiration of it by others;
Dread of losing admiration (”humiliation hurts”).
#8
The neurotic ambition for personal achievement: Need to surpass others not through what one presents or is but through one’s activities:
Thus. Self-evaluation is dependent on being the very best–lover, sportsman, writer, worker–particularly in one’s own mind, recognition by others being vital too, however, and its absence resented; Admixture of destructive tendencies (toward the defeat of others) never lacking but varying in intensity; Relentless driving of self to greater achievements, though with pervasive anxiety; Dread of failure (”humiliation”).
#9
The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence: -Necessity never to need anybody, or to yield to any influence, or to be tied down to anything, any closeness involving the danger of enslavement; Distance and separateness the only source of security; Dread of needing others, of ties, of closeness, of love.
#10
The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability: (see New Ways in Psychoanalysis, Chapter 13, on the super-ego, and E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom, Chapter on conformity).
Relentless driving for perfection; Rumination and self-recriminations regarding possible flaws;
Feelings of superiority over others because of being perfect; Dread of finding flaws within self or of making mistakes; Dread of criticism or reproaches.
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SOME SAY THIS LIST IS TOO LONG, SOME SAY TOO SHORT, SOME MAY OVERLAP. THE IMPORTANT THING IS TO GRASP THAT ANYONE OF THEM COULD REPRESENT ELEMENTS IN YOURSELF.
THEY OR THEIR POLAR OPPOSITE NATURES EXIST IN EVERYONE IN VARIOUS PROPORTIONS [in L. Szondi’s concept as well] AND RISE TO IMPORTANCE WHEN THEY BECOME “NEUROTIC” THIS IS “NEUROTIC” AS DEFINED BY KAREN HORNEY. THESE ARE THOSE ONES WHICH CAUSE OUR FAILURES, UNHAPPINESS, AND UNDERMINES THE QUALITY OF LIFE ITSELF.
Note:”Need”, as a term, depends on context. It can be also a trend, striving, inclination, mind set, attitude, even a drive.
To find the context, try for yourself various terms trying those that seem the best fit, as one that appears most related to causation of the conflict under consideration.
–Chirobut
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The Neurotic Needs According to Karen Horney M.D.