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When preparing this presentation, one of the issues that struck me most was the comparative paucity of data in the psychoanalytic literature on the importance of maturational factors, though Dr Herzog's paper goes some way to redressing this, and I know it is an area in which there is an increasing interest.
One might say that considerations of development, which can be seen as a summation of maturational and experiential components, take into account both sides of the equation, but in the past psychoanalysts have emphasized the experiential aspect, which is so much more easily investigated through the psychoanalytic process. Fortunately for many cases suitable for psychoanalysis, the unknown and potentially important factor of maturation in the aetiology of the disorder does not preclude a successful resolution of the disorder through therapy.
A second issue of importance was whether the concept of character had any useful place within psychoanalysis. It is a concept so large and subject to so many different influences that one is often left with diffuse and vague generalizations. However I think, as have others, that despite this it remains an indispensable concept.
In common English usage character has a number of interrelated meanings some of which inform the psychoanalytic concept more than others, most importantly, referring back here to its origins in Greek for ‘engrave’, it identifies something stable and fixed about an individual. In this meaning, character is seen as something that endures over time and is supposedly independent of changing circumstances or situations. It is the essence of an individual, albeit imperfectly reflected through behaviour. Common-sense observation, as well as analytic practice, tends to support this notion. However, character, which includes the idea of a response or adaptation to the environment, may have only a relative stability. The whole area of social psychology is important here, since we know how differently people may beh