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Among the numerous problems presented by the psycho-analytic treatment of character neuroses, the most difficult to solve seem to be those connected with the termination of treatment. No doubt the very structure of these neuroses is the cause of such special difficulties.
On consulting the literature, I have found a certain echo of what we have experienced all too often in regard to one or other of our patients: 'I might perhaps have done better never to have undertaken this treatment at all', immediately followed by the corollary: 'But since I have, it must be completed, and it must be terminated in the way that is best, or at any rate least bad, for the patient.'
However useful it might be, considerations of length prevent here any detailed study of structure in the individuals who may be considered as falling under this head. We shall therefore take for granted the essential characteristics of the clinical and structural aspects of character neuroses. They have been the subject matter of many works, which provide the basis for the following observations. We shall also refrain from considering the specific aspect of this problem in training analyses. Without recapitulating all the characteristics of these neuroses, as described by different authors, we shall try to suggest a few hypotheses which may prove valuable.
If we start from the viewpoint that an individual's character is his style of life in the world, this very formulation raises the question of what treatment is indicated. If we are dealing with a person suffering from neurosis or psychosis, the disturbance in his style of life is evident, even flamboyant. It causes him such suffering as to justify an intervention. When we are dealing with a character neurosis, the problem takes on its own special colouring. The common denominator of all these patients is perhaps characterized by an absence of suffering connected with their character, or rather by a displacement of suffering on to a symptom or se