10/05/2026
Famous Addiction Psychoanalysts.
Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on Addiction :
[via Addiction Actually].
Karen Horney viewed addiction as a coping mechanism for deep-seated basic anxiety, a feeling of insecurity stemming from unmet childhood needs for love and affection.
She believed that Instead of seeking true emotional (or physical) safety, people develop neurotic needs and compulsive behaviors, like those seen in addiction, to alleviate this anxiety. Though in reality, these only fuel the discomfort.
Her approach, which emphasised social and cultural influences over biological ones, would see addiction as a manifestation of a distorted search for security rather than a purely medical or organic condition.
