Karen Horney's "resigned person" heralds DSM-III-R's borderline personality disorder.

Full Abstract

It is shown here that what Karen Horney called the resignation solution to the problem of basic anxiety leads to psychopathology very similar to DSM-III-R's borderline personality disorder (BPD). Both the "resigned person" and the borderline personality show instability of self-image, social relationships, and mood, and live out the associated deficits with similar styles. While not specifically using the term "splitting", Horney showed how alternating expansive and self-effacing trends can coexist in the resigned person, and how these oscillations in self-other-world constitution influence the resigned person's behavior in a way similar to borderline splitting. Horney's descriptive and psychodynamic analysis of the resignation phenomenon elaborates and gives additional credibility to DSM-III-R's BPD as a diagnostic category.

Author information

Author/s: Muller, R J (RJ);

Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Biography; Historical Article; Journal Article

Journal: Comprehensive psychiatry (Compr Psychiatry), published in UNITED STATES. (Language: eng)

Reference: -1993 Jul-Aug; vol 34 (issue 4) : pp 264-72

Dates: Created 1993/09/10; Completed 1993/09/10; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 8348806, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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