Empathic Character Analysis Presenter: Lawrence Josephs, Ph.D. Discussant: Kenneth Winarick, Ph.D. March 25, 1993

Lawrence Josephs discussed contemporary views of character analysis in a context set by Wilhelm Reich and modified in terms of the self-psychology of Heinz Kohut. In his opinion, it is “more empathic to treat character resistances as self-affirmative survival tactics rather than self-defeating, self-alienating affect avoiding strategies” than resistances, but this may lead to the problem of “treating the patient with kid gloves.” He advocates a “dialectical approach” in which the analyst is neither avoidant of confrontation out of fear of being perceived as unempathic, nor avoidant of empathy out of fear of collusion with defensive strategies.

Josephs elaborated Reich's concept of “character armor … not reducible to any single personality trait … but rather … to the superordinate organization of one's personality.” It is such armor that he sees as serving a narcissistic organization that (1) protects the ego, (2) acts as a defense against narcissistic injury, and (3) maintains a homeostatic balance. As such, character armor is experienced as ego-syntonic and is extremely resistant to therapy. In his view, the function of the therapist is to render such ego-syntonic structures as ego-dystonic, though doing so risks being perceived as a “character assassin” by the patient. This would result from a sense of narcissistic injury and can lead to a revolt that might prove inimical to therapeutic movement. Joseph takes cognizance of the danger of ego