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The term "[[character ]] [[neurosis]]" did not originate with [[Freud]]. It grew out of difficulties in treating character pathologies, distinguished by the great [[resistance ]] that character opposes to [[analysis]]. And its use spread in the wake of Wilhelm [[Reich]]'s [[work ]] on character analysis beginning in 1928. [[Sigmund Freud]], in lecture 34 of his New Introductory Lectures on [[Psycho]]-Analysis (1933a [1932]), underscored the often extremely long duration required by character analysis, but, he assured readers, "it is often successful" (p. 156).

It was undoubtedly a [[lack ]] of success with such cases that led Reich to his conception of "character armor." At the [[time ]] he was [[working ]] at the [[Vienna ]] [[Psychoanalytic ]] [[Clinic ]] with impulsive psychopaths. The problems raised by their [[treatment]], he said, required a sharp focus on the [[structure ]] of the impulsive ego.

The difficulties of [[regression ]] in the [[transference]], the inaccessibility of character fixations to analysis, and the difficulty of investing the [[analyst ]] except in an idealizing mode (a [[defense ]] against any [[erotic ]] or [[aggressive ]] investment) [[form ]] the basis for the analysis of character pathologies. In his Vienna [[seminars ]] between 1922 and 1926, Reich noted that the obstacle to a [[cure ]] is found in the [[patient]]'s [[whole ]] character. He advocated a rigorous analysis of the character defenses, layer by layer, before any deep [[interpretation]].

Hermann Nunberg (1956), denouncing what he saw as the artificial [[separation ]] of the analysis of resistance and the analysis of deep [[contents]], had serious disagreements with Reich with [[regard ]] to the techniques to be implemented. In "Le traitement psychanalytique du caractère" (1928/1982), Sándor Ferenczi argued that the analyst has to reveal how character traits are [[unconsciously ]] used to resist analysis and has to link [[them ]] to the corresponding forgotten [[childhood ]] experiences, in [[particular]], experiences of [[seduction ]] by an [[adult]], for analysis to [[progress]]. This is in keeping with what he called [[analytic ]] pedagogy, which makes use of his [[active ]] [[technique]]. Following Ferenczi, Michael [[Balint ]] (1932/1952) emphasized the effects of the [[fear ]] of [[excitation]], and indeed of [[pleasure ]] itself, often the result of hyperstimulation of the [[child ]] by an adult.

Later Otto Kernberg, in "A psychoanalytic classification of character [[pathology]]" (1970), sought to establish a form of classification based on the increasing severity of pathological manifestations by integrating the various nosographic and metapsychological data ([[agencies]], part [[instincts]]). This terminology is reminiscent of Pierre Marty's 1980 classification of [[neuroses ]] as well, poorly, or irregularly mentalized, or even as behavioral neuroses. According to Marty, the same metapsychological elements are paramount: deficiencies in mentalization correspond to deficiencies in [[object ]] [[internalization ]] and to [[acting out]], which give rise to [[behavior ]] disorders. René Diatkine (1966) emphasized the [[suffering ]] of persons close to the patient; in his view, the ego-syntony of character protects the [[subject ]] from [[anxiety]]. Henri Sauguet (1966) established a gradation between [[neurotic ]] character (close to the symptomatic neuroses) and character neurosis (close to borderline states or even [[psychosis]]).

Despite the importance of, and the [[number ]] of authors who have taken an interest in, character neurosis, in [[France ]] this [[notion ]] is obsolescent because the general focus has shifted toward problems of [[symbol ]] [[formation ]] and [[identity ]] [[construction]]. The term nevertheless retains some currency among psychosomatically oriented [[analysts]], particularly in France. One area [[being ]] researched concerns the connections among the structure of the [[superego]], the [[presence ]] of the [[ideal ]] ego (in Marty's [[sense]]), and the quality of mentalization. In "Névrose de caractère et mentalisation" (Character neurosis and mentalization; 1997) Michael Fain emphasized how character defenses play a protective [[role]]: "The [[disappearance ]] of character traits more often attests to a dementalization taking [[place ]] in an essential [[depression ]] than to the [[resolution ]] of a neurotic [[process]]."

[[Bibliography]]