Discussion

In Dr. Rittenberg's paper I found a marked contrast between his use of the character concept in his beautiful clinical example, and his use of the character concept in his critical discussion at the theoretical and abstract levels.

Dr. Rittenberg's clinical work reflects analysis at its best. He navigates easily between current understanding of his patient's key character traits of goodness and passivity, their elaboration in the transference, and their genetic origin, including the traumatic impact of the father's death as an aftermath of prostatic surgery. As a result of this good work, the analysis led to major behavioral and structural changes.

In his narrative of the patient's prior analysis, Dr. Rittenberg focuses on the misuse of a rigid version of the concept of depressive character, a misuse which led to a stalemated and failed treatment. It seems as though the prior analyst was not able to deal with the patient's character resistance nor his transference reactions nor her own countertransference reactions. She erected a theory to justify her failure by blaming the patient's character structure. The analyst told the patient that “his potential for changing his depressive character was very limited because of its early origins.” Moreover, when the analyst became exasperated, she told him that “he was as rigid as concrete.”

However, using this example on which to build his criticism of the concept of character type, Dr. Rittenberg is, I believe, relying on an unrealistic picture of the purpose and function of this concept in our current thinking. The classification of character started by Freud