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THE CONCEPT OF CHARACTER RESISTANCE suffers from ambiguities in character theory. I shall argue that the term "character resistance" is a theoretical anachronism reflecting the fact that the concept of character as prevalently applied in psychoanalytic theory is nonphenomenal in connotation. I shall illustrate that the clinical phenomena designated by this term are better understood by utilizing the concepts of multiple function and compromise formation in the context of the tripartite structural model to identify and detail phenomena better categorized as character traits. I shall argue for the advantage of preserving the concept of discrete, descriptively concrete character traits. Failure to recognize the conceptual incompatibility of character as a supraordinate concept of the mind with modern structural concepts has important consequences for psychoanalytic technique and for our understanding of resistance. Such failure leads to incorrect descriptions of how the modern psychoanalyt usually deals with resistance, and it has important implications for psychoanalytic nosology.
Psychoanalytic theories about character have played a decisive,