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After the completion of the workshop-group discussions in the morning of the second day, the meeting continued in the afternoon with a further plenary session, this time chaired by Prof. R. Wallerstein, and with a panel consisting of Dr S. Abrams, Mrs E. Furman, Mrs A-M. Sandler and Dr L. Shengold. Following the panellists' contributions, the Chairman invited a discussion from the floor. The Colloquium ended with the Chairman's final statement and summary.
R. Wallerstein: For this first part of the afternoon we have four presentations which will be personal statements from representatives of the groups, but this year not necessarily reflecting the discussion in the groups at all. I will take them alphabetically and will ask Sam Abrams to speak first. These will be presentations of between fifteen and twenty minutes which will allow a few minutes for discussion and comment.
S. Abrams: I formulated my experience over the last two days in terms of five overlapping dilemmas with which I struggled and which have a certain sequence to them.
The first I call the empirical/conceptual dilemma, which was: what is character? Many people had trouble with that. If you start from a concept of character — if you say character is based on libidinal types, or is a reflection of object relations, or an expression of temperament, that forecloses opportunities for study. So it seemed to me best to look at the phenomenon descriptively. Of the many descriptions we have had this weekend, best I think was Ann Appelbaum's. She said it was an elusive but indispensable concept which is observed by its predictable impact upon persons, tasks and principles. I liked too Joe Sandler's notion that this was one of our elastic concepts; and the alliterative view expressed by McLean, that it is engraved, enduring and an essence. Character is an enduring aspect of a person that abides over time, and that is noted by the impact that it has upon other people or upon tasks or upon principles.
So I faced the