The German-born American psychoanalyst Karen Danielsen Horney (1885-1952) was a pioneer of neo-Freudianism. She believed that every human being has an innate drive toward self-realization and that neurosis is essentially a process obstructing this healthy development.

Born in Hamburg on September 16, 1885, Karen Horney received her medical and psychiatric education in Berlin. Her medical practice began in 1913, and then she taught in the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute (1918-1932). She participated in many international congresses in which Sigmund Freud was the leading figure, but being influenced by the new currents of 20th-century science, she increasingly questioned some of Freud's ideas.

In 1932 Horney went to Chicago, III., where she served as associate director of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute until 1934. Then she taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute until 1941, when she made her definitive move away from the Freudian group. She took the lead in founding the Association for the Advancement of...