The Neurotic Character

From time to time the psycho-analyst is called upon to treat certain individuals of both sexes whose illness cannot be classified under the usual categories. Indeed it may be difficult at first to understand exactly what urge has carried them to the point of undergoing a prolonged course of treatment. In some instances it is ostensibly a matter of matrimonial difficulties, in others an incapacity for social adaptation bringing with it a crop of emotionally tinged situations, in others again a tendency to 'breakdown' in phases of life requiring decisive action. Preliminary investigation does not bring much positive information: neurotic symptoms of a dramatic sort may be quite conspicuously absent, although leading questions in many cases uncover an obsessional disposition. Whatever symptomatic constructions are present have rather a larval character, for example a tendency to hypochondriacal preoccupation, mild forms of compulsive doubt, slight phobia constructions, lesser conversion or pathoneurotic symptoms or in some instances abnormal jealousy reactions together with indications that the patient's projective systems are being overworked, attitudes of exaggerated suspicion, a tendency to regard himself as the victim of conspiring circumstances. Some form or other of psycho-sexual inhibition is usually present, although it may not have been regarded as such by the patient. Two facts, however, can usually be elicited without much difficulty: first that the individual is faced with a series of crises which recur constantly and seem to have a stereotyped form even although the environmental setting may vary; secondly, that the most acute of these crises are associated with changes in the libidinal milieu, separations from or losses amongst the family circle, problems of marriage or of marital life, changes in occupation or decisions regarding a fixed career, sudden variations in social conditions or sudden assumptions of responsibility.

Should the case proceed