Comment on Dr. Winter's Paper. Francis McLaughlin. Pp. 342-343.

Winter suggests that the hysterical character has a preoedipal ego defect in that he is excessively a fusionist and insufficiently a separatist. He lacks normal aggression, including that in his sexual life, and lives by charm and seduction rather than by a combination of object love and mastery of obstacles. In analysis he must have a regressive, corrective experience in which submissiveness and seduction

fail and aggressive defiance of the analyst is met with interest and acceptance and does not bring on the rejection he fears.

McLaughlin thinks that Winter stresses an important aspect of hysterical character neurosis. It is likely the analyst serves not only as a mother from whom the patient needs to achieve separation, but as a father with whose and assertiveness he can identify.