Horney's basic evils

Horney's 10 basic evils

Indifference toward the child
Rejection of the child
Hostility toward the child
Obvious preferences for a sibling
Unfair punishment
Ridicule
Humiliation
Erratic behavior
Unkept promises
Isolation of the child from others

In my family I have a brother and a sister who always take priority over me. My sister is six years younger than me and so my parents believe that she needs a lot of attention being the baby of the family. However when I was here age I had a five year old sister who again needed more care and attention than me. They also pay a lot of attention to my brother because he constantly gets into trouble etc. I'm more of the 'good girl' who they never have to remind to do homework or anything so they almost just forgot about me. I used to be naughty deliberately just to get some attention.

Another thing is they would punish me for something my brother or sister did simply because I'm the oldest and I didn't stop the situation before it happened. That made me feel bad because I was being given someone else's punishment, when I was trying to be well behaved myself.

My parents have never been so good at keeping promises but it was mostly the small things they broke. For example if we wanted to stay up and watch a tv programme they would say you can stay up tomorrow night instead but we would be sent to bed at the same time. Not major things though, they've always been relatively good at keeping promises.

My parents have never rejected me, its more that they just pushed me to one side a little bit. My parents are not bad people and I do think they love me, they just don't know how to show it so often it doesn't feel like they love me at all.

One thing my parents have done is point out all my mistakes to people who visit the house and that is kind of humiliating sometimes. For example: I made a chocolate cake once that I've made a thousand times before and instead of putting coco powder in the icing I put coffee powder in! Now I know that this is funny but telling everyone who walks through the door can be humiliating especially seeing as I often cook for my family and thats the first mistake I have made!

bibliography

Sharma, Mataji. "Karen Horney." 2 Apr 2008

Boeree, George. "Karen Horney." 2006. 3 Apr 2008 http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/horney.jpg.