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The Obsessive Personality is a truly creative work. It is a scientific and clinical presentation, but not that alone. It is a journey into the world of the obsessive person in a way that makes him live and be understood. Salzman does a creatively compulsive job, leaving little undone. His treatise is comprehensive and covers the origins, dynamics, and therapy of the obsessive personality. Salzman's purpose is to provide “an additional point of view in the comprehension and treatment of this fascinating and pervasive human condition.”
The author's chapter on theories of obsessive behavior is brief and limited, leaving one with the sense of just passing through. However, the thinking of other theorists is explicitly referred to or recognizably woven into the body of the volume. As the writer proceeds from theory to style to the multitude of behavior patterns from normal to pathological that are adopted by the obsessional, the picture achieves an increasing cohesiveness and clarity. As the dynamic structure of the obsessive comes together in all its complexities and he is revealed as a person struggling for psychological survival and the ability to function adequately, the reader experiences a sense of meaning in both psychogenetic and existential terms.
Salzman insightfully, respectfully, and humanly traces the obsessive