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A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney
Reveals Horney's personal and professional struggle, from the time she took issue with Freud's ideas in 1920 Berlin through her exclusion from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1941
479 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1987
About the author
Susan Quinn
37 books33 followersSusan Quinn grew up in Chillicothe, Ohio, and graduated from Oberlin College. She began her writing career as a newspaper reporter on a suburban daily outside of Cleveland, following two years as an apprentice actor at the Cleveland Playhouse. In 1967, she published her first book under the name Susan Jacobs: a nonfiction account of the making of a Broadway play called On Stage (Alfred A. Knopf). In 1972, after moving to Boston, she became a regular contributor to an alternative Cambridge weekly, The Real Paper, then a contributor and staff writer on Boston Magazine. In 1979, she won the Penney-Missouri magazine award for an investigative article for Boston Magazine on dangerous cargo transported through the city, and the Golden Hammer Award from the National Association of Home Builders for an investigative article on home inspections. She has written articles for many publications, including the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and Ms. Magazine.
In 1987, she published her first biography, A Mind of Her Own; The Life of Karen Horney (Simon and Schuster, Addison-Wesley and Perseus) for which she received the Boston Globe's Laurence L. Winship Award.
For her next book, Marie Curie: A Life, she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation writing residency at Bellagio in Italy. A reviewer in Science magazine predicted that her book "is certain to be this generation's biography of Marie Curie.” Marie Curie was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was on the short list for the Fawcett Book Prize in England. It has been translated into eight languages, and was awarded the Elle Grand prix des lectrices in 1997.
In 2001, Quinn published Human Trials: Scientists, Investors and Patients in the Quest for a Cure. It was described as a “real-life thriller” by the New York Daily News. Human Trials was chosen by Library Journal as one of the best sci-tech books of 2001.
Susan Quinn has lectured all over the United States, and has spoken in France and Poland about her biography of Marie Curie. In 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Stout awarded her a Doctorate of Humane Letters.
Quinn has served as the Chair of PEN New England, a branch of the writers’ organization PEN International. She is an accomplished flutist, and continues to participate in chamber groups on a regular basis. Susan is married to a psychoanalyst, Daniel Jacobs and has two children and four grandchildren. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts just outside of Boston.
In 1987, she published her first biography, A Mind of Her Own; The Life of Karen Horney (Simon and Schuster, Addison-Wesley and Perseus) for which she received the Boston Globe's Laurence L. Winship Award.
For her next book, Marie Curie: A Life, she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation writing residency at Bellagio in Italy. A reviewer in Science magazine predicted that her book "is certain to be this generation's biography of Marie Curie.” Marie Curie was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was on the short list for the Fawcett Book Prize in England. It has been translated into eight languages, and was awarded the Elle Grand prix des lectrices in 1997.
In 2001, Quinn published Human Trials: Scientists, Investors and Patients in the Quest for a Cure. It was described as a “real-life thriller” by the New York Daily News. Human Trials was chosen by Library Journal as one of the best sci-tech books of 2001.
Susan Quinn has lectured all over the United States, and has spoken in France and Poland about her biography of Marie Curie. In 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Stout awarded her a Doctorate of Humane Letters.
Quinn has served as the Chair of PEN New England, a branch of the writers’ organization PEN International. She is an accomplished flutist, and continues to participate in chamber groups on a regular basis. Susan is married to a psychoanalyst, Daniel Jacobs and has two children and four grandchildren. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts just outside of Boston.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 18, 2023
You've likely heard of Occam's Razor - the idea that when there are multiple explanations for something, the simplicity of an explanation is a reason to prefer it.
At one point in the history of astronomy the accepted explanation for the motion of the planets across the night sky was a complex system of "deferents and epicycles" that not only accounted for the motion but allowed the earth to remain as the center of the solar system. Later came the far simpler system of the sun as the center of a system of planets orbiting around it.
Of course we know now that the epicycle theory was false because we've been able to verify the actual paths that the planets take. The epicycle theory was a construct of the human mind that only appeared to explain things.
In psychiatry, I would equate Freud's theory to the epicycle theory. Freud produced a huge volume of work that appeared to explain the operation of the mind based on his ideas about its immature state and a construction of ideas (id, ego, superego) that determined one's mental processes as an adult.
Freud offered what seemed like a solid handle on our innermost conflicts, fears and our relationships to others. It was a comprehensive system that supplied a framework for therapy and for the lack of any competing system, took off like wildfire in Western cultures that were awash in anxieties created by the loosening of the religious grip by science.
And like the church, Freud's ideas drew the faithful and from the faithful came those determined to defend the theory above all. Karen Horney was one of the early supporters who had doubts and over time became more bold in asserting them, supporting only the parts of Freudian theory that she thought were supported by her own practice of therapy.
These days, Freud's ideas have been absorbed into mainstream thought. Who hasn't heard of the ego and who doesn't believe it provides a good way to look at how people behave? But who takes penis envy seriously?
Horney was concerned with the present rather than the early childhood of patients. She defied the Freudian therapeutic practice of remaining aloof and removed from the patient, preferring to relate to them in a personal way.
This book is a study in orthodoxy and rebellion. The account of the psychiatric societies that were formed in the United States is a perfect example of how people band together with enthusiasm only to be riven with discord ending in expulsions or rebellion, and at bottom are the egos of those involved. Does it really matter what the system of belief may be? It is drive for success by individuals that comes through. Who better than psychiatrists to be armed with the knowledge of the mind so as to see what is going on and take measures against it? Read this book and you will see that they are no better equipped than any other group of people to control themselves and, in fact, can use Freud as a stick to beat their own colleagues.
Horney was one of the first women to break the barrier of sex. She never looked back and to the end was driving forward with an insatiable curiosity. A heavy smoker, she succumbed to cancer, but was fortunate to be up and about and ignorant of her illness until just a few months before her death.
Quinn doesn't dive deeply into psychiatry, so don't expect to learn a great deal about psychoanalysis here. The most interesting part of the book comes when Horney is exposed to Zen and decides to take a trip to Japan to visit Buddhist shrines in the company of an expert on them. Who wouldn't delight in this opportunity? The attempt by Horney to reconcile Zen with psychiatry are most interesting.
While one would expect WWII and the Nazi reign to play a big role in Horney's life, they have remarkably little direct impact. She does move to the US but well before Hitler's apogee and not because of him. She gains from getting established before a flood of refugee analyists arrive from Europe to compete. The devastating Weimar period leaves her relatively unscathed, protected by the wealth of her husband in a bucolic retreat far from the strife. Time and again she bounces up when adversity knocks.
This is no epic but the account of someone who never hesitated to grasp opportunity, and succeeded in both Germany and the United States as a result.
At one point in the history of astronomy the accepted explanation for the motion of the planets across the night sky was a complex system of "deferents and epicycles" that not only accounted for the motion but allowed the earth to remain as the center of the solar system. Later came the far simpler system of the sun as the center of a system of planets orbiting around it.
Of course we know now that the epicycle theory was false because we've been able to verify the actual paths that the planets take. The epicycle theory was a construct of the human mind that only appeared to explain things.
In psychiatry, I would equate Freud's theory to the epicycle theory. Freud produced a huge volume of work that appeared to explain the operation of the mind based on his ideas about its immature state and a construction of ideas (id, ego, superego) that determined one's mental processes as an adult.
Freud offered what seemed like a solid handle on our innermost conflicts, fears and our relationships to others. It was a comprehensive system that supplied a framework for therapy and for the lack of any competing system, took off like wildfire in Western cultures that were awash in anxieties created by the loosening of the religious grip by science.
And like the church, Freud's ideas drew the faithful and from the faithful came those determined to defend the theory above all. Karen Horney was one of the early supporters who had doubts and over time became more bold in asserting them, supporting only the parts of Freudian theory that she thought were supported by her own practice of therapy.
These days, Freud's ideas have been absorbed into mainstream thought. Who hasn't heard of the ego and who doesn't believe it provides a good way to look at how people behave? But who takes penis envy seriously?
Horney was concerned with the present rather than the early childhood of patients. She defied the Freudian therapeutic practice of remaining aloof and removed from the patient, preferring to relate to them in a personal way.
This book is a study in orthodoxy and rebellion. The account of the psychiatric societies that were formed in the United States is a perfect example of how people band together with enthusiasm only to be riven with discord ending in expulsions or rebellion, and at bottom are the egos of those involved. Does it really matter what the system of belief may be? It is drive for success by individuals that comes through. Who better than psychiatrists to be armed with the knowledge of the mind so as to see what is going on and take measures against it? Read this book and you will see that they are no better equipped than any other group of people to control themselves and, in fact, can use Freud as a stick to beat their own colleagues.
Horney was one of the first women to break the barrier of sex. She never looked back and to the end was driving forward with an insatiable curiosity. A heavy smoker, she succumbed to cancer, but was fortunate to be up and about and ignorant of her illness until just a few months before her death.
Quinn doesn't dive deeply into psychiatry, so don't expect to learn a great deal about psychoanalysis here. The most interesting part of the book comes when Horney is exposed to Zen and decides to take a trip to Japan to visit Buddhist shrines in the company of an expert on them. Who wouldn't delight in this opportunity? The attempt by Horney to reconcile Zen with psychiatry are most interesting.
While one would expect WWII and the Nazi reign to play a big role in Horney's life, they have remarkably little direct impact. She does move to the US but well before Hitler's apogee and not because of him. She gains from getting established before a flood of refugee analyists arrive from Europe to compete. The devastating Weimar period leaves her relatively unscathed, protected by the wealth of her husband in a bucolic retreat far from the strife. Time and again she bounces up when adversity knocks.
This is no epic but the account of someone who never hesitated to grasp opportunity, and succeeded in both Germany and the United States as a result.
April 1, 2021
A well written and interesting bio with a good introduction to the works of B Horney and the context of the era
June 6, 2020
I rarely enjoy biographies, but this one is so well-written that I couldn’t put it down. I agree with another reviewer who said it is probably most interesting to readers who have backgrounds and interest in psychoanalysis, but the author does an excellent job of explaining concepts and context so that you wouldn’t need to know anything before reading the book. Karen Horney herself is a very compelling person who you can see as human and flawed, but continue to root for throughout the story of her life. I save 5 star ratings for books that really change my life or way of thinking, and this one earned that rating.
November 28, 2013
3 stars means I enjoyed reading it but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're interested in psychoanalysis. If you are then you should know some things about Karen Horney, and this is a good book to learn it from :)
November 13, 2017
A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney (Hardcover)
by Susan Quinn
by Susan Quinn
May 1, 2017
I read this book back in February of 1988, long before I had heard of Goodreads. I read it because I remembered the author from our high school days in my hometown. I have also been fascinated by psychology since my high school days so I was interested in the topic of this book. To be honest, I can't say now that at the time I read it I wouldn't have given it 5 stars. Going through some old letters today I found a note that I had finished the book at 1:00am on the morning of February 8, 1988. I must have liked the book quite a bit to stay up till 1:00 reading it on a day I had to go to work. Perhaps I will read it again.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews