[1] Karen Horney has postulated three potential character patterns stemming from these conditions: compliant and submissive behavior, and a need for love: arrogance, hostility, and a need for power; or social avoidance, withdrawal, and a need for independence.
Sigmund Freud was a physician whose fascination with the emotional problems of his patients led him to develop a new branch of psychological theory.
He found from his own experimental researching that the personality has three major systems of psychic energy: the id, the ego, and the superego.
Horney believes that as a child struggles with anxiety and the security issue, various behavioral strategies may be tried and eventually a character pattern will be adopted.
The environmental and societal values are central to this new view of the ego, a view that resulted in “the addition of an entire social and cultural dimension to the concept of personality growth.” [6] Erikson's benefaction to the knowledge of disordered behavior centers around his concepts of crisis and the importance of crisis resolution during critical periods of development.