In investigating the contributions child analysis makes towards a better understanding of character neurosis in adults, we have continuously to bear in mind that the child's personality structure, its 'ego', is still in the course of development, while the disturbances of the adult stem from a personality that has already reached its final form. An investigation that is guided by ego-psychological points of view will pay particular attention to this fact. If clinical and technical similarities are found, it is most probable that the processes leading to these similarities are different in nature. In a description that stresses the absence of any feeling of illness in character neurosis, we risk neglecting the actual suffering and the way in which it manifests itself. One easily gets the impression that in character neurosis suffering is less, an opinion with which I cannot agree. There is a specific difference between the ways of suffering of a character neurotic and a symptomatic neurotic, besides their being conscious or unconscious. The latter