A Study of a Perversion and an Attendant Character Disorder

A patient presenting himself for treatment as a Ph.D. from a foreign university was practicing psychotherapy and had ambitions to become a lay analyst. The training he had was questionable and his connections were with dubious 'analytic' groups. He stated that he had been in analysis with a well-known psychiatrist who had recently died. He wanted to return to graduate school to obtain a degree in psychology because his doctorate was in a nonrelated field. He was afraid of returning to school because he was unsure of his ability to pass examinations as the result of a 'writing block'. This proved to mean that he could not write anything that was his own. Whenever he had to do any writing, he plagiarized, and at school he had 'copied' from other students.

His intimate relationships were with women who supported him financially. When he had to face supporting one of his former wives and her child he revealed to her that he was unfaithful, knowing that she would then divorce him. When he began treatment he was married to his fifth wife, one upon whom he could rely for financial support. He became tense and anxious whenever she wanted consolation or wished to be 'treated like a baby'. He became very anxious when she expressed the desire to have a child and was relieved when she resumed her studies instead.

His wife's resumption of her studies coincided with the beginning of my summer vacation. Three weeks later the patient wrote me stating that he had got into a 'mess' about which he gave no clue in the letter. When analysis was resumed he told me he had been arrested with a prostitute and taken to a police station. He escaped prosecution, he said, by having been intimidated into testifying against her. He need not have testified against the girl. He could have corroborated her story that he