Horney's Three Neurotic Stances and MLP: A comparison. · 5:19pm Apr 19th, 2017

Today's psychology class was pretty interesting. That's a strange thing for me to say, given how I'm usually bored senseless in that class, but today's lecture on personality honestly hooked me in. Of all the things we went through, however, one stuck with me: The bit where they discussed Karen Horney, specifically on what she said about the Neurotic Stance. To simplify it to just the bare essentials for the sake of time, she stated that a neurosis was a counterproductive way of dealing with insecurities, especially regarding relationships. According to her, these came in three types: Moving Toward People, Moving Against People, and Moving Away from People. As I wrote down the notes on each one, I came to realize that MLP has at least one character that applies to each of these three types. So, because I thought it was an interesting thing to discuss, I'm going to go over each one, and how it applies to each character.

The first of these is Moving Toward People. The basic idea is that these people are 'people pleasers', needing the approval of others in order to feel good about themselves. Without others approval, they themselves spiral out of positivity, sometimes into a state of depression.

When I heard that in class, the first pony who came to my mind was Pinkie Pie. After all, she's literally devoted her entire life to making everyone else happy! She's incredibly quick to make friends, whether they want it or not, and when she thinks her friends forgot her, she falls into a strange psychotic breakdown.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in terms of what Horney's theory is about (masking insecurities), Rainbow Dash actually comes the closest. Rainbow Dash is a character that feels she has to be the best at everything she does. Be it a contest, the weather, or being a hero, Rainbow Dash is a character who adores being praised by others. Unlike Pinkie Pie, however, I think Rainbow Dash feels that if she wants to be appreciated, she has to be the best. Like, there's no other option. This idea comes from two episodes, the first being Sonic Rainboom. In that episode, she pushes herself (and arguably Fluttershy) to her breaking point in order to come out on top. However, after several failed practice runs and Rarity's "beautiful" wings, Rainbow becomes incredibly scared in the waiting room, delaying her turn as long as possible by switching numbers and even hiding. This seemed to imply that, despite her confident bravado, she's actually quite paranoid and self-conscious deep down. She feels that if she fails, then everyone will disown her, and the idea terrifies her. This is further cemented in the episode The Mysterious Mare Do Well. Say what you will about the episode itself (*cough* not that bad *cough*), but it contains one of my favorite moments in the show. At first, Rainbow Dash is enjoying her status as a hero, drinking in the attention and praise. Eventually, however, when it begins to go too far, the Mare Do Well shows up and starts putting her in her place. After several failed attempts to get her hero status back, she's eventually alone on a cloud, where she reveals that without any sort of praise or attention, she feels completely broken, heavily implying she's actually pretty insecure deep down, and needs the support and approval of others. It's not very long, but it's one of my favorite moments in the show because of just how much it reveals about Rainbow Dash in not a lot of time and without a lot of dialogue, and it's very similar to what I've felt in the past. While what exactly happened to Rainbow to make her feel this way isn't clear yet, the implications in those two episodes clearly point to Rainbow Dash being the Move Toward member of this trifecta.

Moving on, the 2nd one is Moving Against People. These people tend to force their power onto others to make them feel better about themselves. Whether through physical power, control over others, or manipulation, these people need to dominate to make themselves feel good.

Admittedly, I didn't think of anyone right away with this one. None of the main cast are like this at all (well, Starlight was at first, but we seem to be moving away from that), and even most of the side characters don't seem to fit this archetype. But after a while, I remembered Trixie, a character who I've gone on record saying I've never cared for. Be that as it may though, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that yeah, she actually does fit in that role reasonably well. Heck, she tends to use all three methods at various points! In Boast Busters, she does it primarily through physical superiority, out classing Rainbow, Applejack, and Rarity when they try to one up her. Heck, even her boasts of taking down an Ursa Major seem to fit into the physical category. In Magic Duel, she opts for control over others, when she ends up taking over all of Ponyville (while under the Alicorn Amulet's power, admittedly, but still, it counts). And finally, in No Second Prances, she seems to opt towards manipulation, guilt tripping Starlight into choosing to join with her magic show over Twilight's dinner. Want more evidence? Her song in Rainbow Rocks is literally about how she dominates because she's powerful and great! And while the specifics aren't entirely clear, it's obvious that she suffers from quite a bit of inner baggage, as shown in her flashbacks in Magic Duel, along with a couple subtle little hinters in Boast Busters. Again, fits pretty well.

Finally, there's Moving Away from People, which is attributed towards antisocial behavior. These are people who tend to withdraw from social situations and try to avoid conflict when possible. Why? Because if they don't get involved with others, they can't get their heart broken by others. While it protects them from the pains of relationships, it also keeps them away from the joys of relationships, and can make them feel very alone.

Do I even need to say which character this fits with the best? Well, probably, given there are a few characters like that, but the most famous one is definitely Fluttershy, namely first four seasons Fluttershy. Not only is she incredibly shy around others, to the level of it being a mental issue in some cases (Hi, Filli Vanilli), but whenever something happens that really upsets her, she always runs away to someplace alone, away from other ponies. Granted, where she runs is usually where her animals are, but that seems to be because she believes the relationship with an animal is far less conditional than one with a pony, and as such, there's far less chance of her being betrayed by her animals (aside from Angel Bunny, all of her animals seem to love her unconditionally). In addition, she's also had a lot of issues where she tried to avoid conflict, which resulted in her going along with whatever she was told to do so as to not start any conflict, which at some points got to being incredibly unhealthy. As for her inner conflict, it's shown several times that she not only seems to suffer from anxiety, but she also has a few traumatic events that happened to her in the past. (♪ Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can hardly fly! ♪) While Seasons 5 and 6 had Fluttershy taking more chances at being social and being more assertive (and praise God for it), in the first four seasons she embodied this almost to a T.

So what does this all mean? Well, I guess it means that Karen Horney was pretty on point back in the 1920's. I'm sure we all know people (or heck, even are people) who suffer from one of these three neurosis. I know I'm a huge Move Toward guy, and both of my little brothers seem to represent the other two. However, the characters I've listed above, I would argue have either overcome or are well on the way to overcoming their neurosis. As time goes on, we see these characters grow and change, overcoming their weaknesses steadily over time. And maybe, at the end of the day, that's MLP's greatest strength. Every one of the main 6 is incredibly deep and complex, and all have issues that they need to overcome. As the show goes on, we see them gradually overcoming these issues (many of which are ones we ourselves struggle with in both childhood and adulthood), which serves to not only make these characters feel real, but also makes them inspirations to us to overcome our own shortcomings. Which character you think does it best depends on who you are and your own personal experiences, but when push comes to shove, they serve as role models to people in all stages of life, for anyone who's willing to get invested.

Or maybe it's just a cartoon about brightly colored equines and I'm taking this all way too seriously. Who knows?