The Genetic Determinants of Obsessive-Compulsive Phenomena in Character Formation

Arthur F. Valenstein explained that the panel hoped to concentrate on those aspects of ego development which manifest themselves by certain obsessive or compulsivelike features of behavior in childhood, perhaps before the anal phase and sometimes as early as the point when the preverbal period gives way to beginning speech. The term "genetic determinants" underscored the fact that the panel would approach the topic from the viewpoint of the causal antecedents, touching on the issue of the complementary series of heredity and environment. Genetics is the branch of biology which is concerned with heredity and constitutional variations, and which studies the make-up of an organism as it evolves out of the genes. On the other hand, when we seek to make a genetic reconstruction in analysis, we only dimly, if at all, mean the actual genic factors—although we acknowledge their existence. We refer rather to an explanatory hypothesis in terms of origin, development, and causal antecedents in the broader sense. And assuredly these points of view are not mutually exclusive. Biologists admit that there is no such thing as a purely genetic determinant of development uninfluenced by environment, while the importance of constitutional factors was acknowledged in analysis from the very beginning. However, the issue of the role of constitutional factors in character development and in neurosogenesis did not really become central until Freud published "Analysis Terminable and Interminable," with its emphasis on the innate variations in the strength of the instincts and in the constitution of the ego.

The panel would take up the question whether there is something particular in character development that antedates conflict and remains outside of it, as well as the modifiable and unmodifiable modalities of character through analysis. We are very much concerned nowadays with the issue of what are the givens in character development, not only because of the stimulus provided by Ha