Reviews

Westkott, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado, assesses Karen Horney's contribution to psychoanalysis in the context of a women's psychology. Drawing both on Horney and on the literary, popular, and scholarly works of others, she explores the continuing cultural devaluation and sexualization of women as the major precipitator of their basic conflict (compliance versus assertion). Horney's three feminine personalities (defiant, domineering, and detached) are scrutinized, but feminists will most appreciate the critique of Freud and the description of Horney's fully evolved ``female hero.'' A remarkably lucid, sophisticated analysis of highly charged and complex materials, with a peek into Horney's own personal struggle. Recommended for larger collections emphasizing women or psychology. Janice Arenofsky, formerly with Arizona State Lib., Phoenix