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For many years, Leon Salzman has been attempting to identify, clarify, and extend our understanding of the nature of the obsessive-compulsive neurosis and its underlying character structure. His first book on the subject, ‘The Obsessive Personality” was well received and much discussed. In this more recent book, he has not only revised and expanded his ideas, but has also included much material from a complete transcription of the case of an obsessive neurotic with whom he has worked in 1952-1953. Since this material was part of a research project studying “change of subject,” he has also included his own thoughts after the sessions regarding what he was out for and what he thought had happened in the encounters. This material is the basis for discussions of the whole process of therapy. As he writes, “It not only documented the enormous difficulties encountered in treating these disorders, but also contained ‘in nuce’ the theories I was to develop and put forward some fifteen years later.” He was right in believing that workers in the field of mental health who find themselves “constantly faced with the arduous and often discouraging task of treating this condition” will benefit greatly from reviewing this material with him.
Beginning with an historical perspective with special reference to the instinctual and motivational models of human behavior he then focuses on the obsessive-compulsive dynamics. In his review of the subject, one can find many formulations which are consonant with Horney's concepts of