Compulsive Personality Disorder

In this paper, my effort will be to consider the compulsive personality disorder in the light of Karen Horney's psychoanalytic perspective. The tasks before us are the following: first, we need to consider the real usefulness of this diagnostic label; second, in more effectively appreciating Horney's point of view, we briefly review certain other watershed contributions to understanding the syndrome; and third, we discuss Horney's contributions with some comments concerning prognosis.

The American Psychiatric Association's DSM III sets forth the diagnostic criteria for the disorder in the following terms1:

At least four of the following are characteristic of the individual's current and long-term functioning, are not limited to episodes of illness and cause either significant impairment in social or occupational functioning or subjective distress: (1) restricted ability to express warm and tender emotions, e.g., the individual is unduly conventional, serious and formal, and stingy; (2) perfectionism that interferes with the ability to grasp “the big picture,” e.g., preoccupation with trivial details, rules, order, organization, schedules, and lists; (3) insistence that others submit to his or her way of doing things, and lack of awareness of the feelings elicited by this behavior, e.g., a husband stubbornly insists his wife complete errands for him regardless of her plans; (4) excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of pleasure and the value of interpersonal relationships; (5) indecisiveness: decision making is either avoided, postponed, or protracted, because of an inordinate fear of making a mistake, e.g., the individual cannot get assignments done on time because of ruminating about priorities.

The compulsive personality disorder is distinguished from the obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the latter diagnostic entity, there need to be discrete ideas that painfully intrude into consciousness or specific rituals that the individual recognizes as i