Behavioral Styles in Infancy and Adulthood: The Work of Karen Horney and Attachment Theorists Collaterally Considered

Theoretical formulations of normal and pathological development in child psychiatry and psychology are based on the premise that later coping abilities and competencies are related to early development. Most psychoanalytic theories maintain that nonorganic types of psychopathology are formed in childhood around attempts to defend against experiences of emotional conflict and stress. In particular, the work of Karen Horney (8, 9) delineates three basic personality styles which vary along a continuum of severity and which describe a person's characteristic mode of functioning. Horney's theory, based on clinical observation of adults, focuses on the neurotic individual's interpersonal relations with others and speculates on how certain behavioral styles of adults evolved from the early parent-child relationship.

In developmental psychology, attachment theory, based on experimental observation of infants and mothers, postulates that many forms of psychiatric disturbances can be attributed to deviations in the development of the early affective tie between infant and caregiver. In the work of Ainsworth and her colleagues (2, 3) three basic modes of the infant's relating to the primary caregiver (in western culture, usually the mother) have been delineated. Individual differences in the infant's relationship to mother are viewed as they relate to qualitative differences in the way attachment behaviors are organized. Within the attachment perspective, it is assumed that, despite dramatic changes in behavioral repertoire which accompany advances in developmental level, there is a continuity in the