Horney-Psychoanalytic Social Theory Journal
Horney theory is described in the article The Predictive Power of Horney’s Psychoanalytical Approach: An Empirical Study written by Coolidge, Segal, Benight and Danielian. Horney made an assumption that an individual will automatically defend themselves against a basic anxiety including loss and separation from their mother (Coolidge et al, p. 363). This also includes the feeling of hopelessness many feel in this world full of hostility (Coolidge et al, p. 363). The individual will react in three main avenues: aggressive, compliant or detached (Coolidge et al, p. 363).
The aggressive individual focuses their attention to be against others. The compliant individual moves towards others, caring for the needs of others more than themselves. Focusing their attention away from others describes accurately detached. A healthy individual will react in any one of these manners and quickly return to their normal personality (Coolidge et al, p. 363). An individual who is free from mental health issues or considered healthy will be able to move with great flexibility from one personality style to another. This is not the case for individuals with neurosis. Neurotic adults develop a fixation on a single manner to the exclusion resorting back to the “norm”.
One hundred seventy two individuals were involved in this study and evidence showed the individuals prone to neurosis to develop advanced traits of compliant, aggressive and detached dimensions (Coolidge et al, p. 364). This included compliant individuals becoming self-effacing, intrapsychic need to help others to the detriment of your own needs, dependence on the need to help and love characterized as “surrendering”. Aggressive described as expansive solution with strong needs for self-aggrandizement, mastery of others and dominating others. A resigned solution is often described as detached, allows for emotional distance or avoidance of others and a hypersensitivity to any outside coercion or influence (Coolidge et al, p. 364).
The study incorporated 87 males and 85 females who were given the HCTI either in their home or at the university (Coolidge et al, p. 365). The HCTI is a 57 item scale measuring tool which is normed at compliant .80, aggressive .82 and detached .83 for the first test. The retest results were as follows: compliant .92, aggressive .92 and detached .91 (Coolidge et al, p. 366). The study was classified as a multiple regression analysis (Coolidge et al, p. 367). This allowed the assessment to define the strength of the relationship between a dependent variable several independent variables (Coolidge et al, p. 367). This study began with the three personality disorder cluster as the dependent variable and utilizing the three HCTI scales. Those three HCTI scales included compliant, aggressive and detached.
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