Very few clients can accurately analyse at the onset of therapy, as the threat of ego fragmentation makes analysis hard. The neurotic character does not have an insight into their illness, organically incorporated within the personality, like character traits and behaviours. One may need to be orderly, compulsive or hysterical to defend against external stimuli. They develop emotional and physical armour to master the libido pushing forward from the id, using neurotic tendencies as compensation. The inner anxiety is continually bound in the process, at the bottom of the formation and behaviour. The character armour is the moulded expression of the narcissistic defences embodied in the psychic structure. Resistance is how one behaves, speaks, walks, or gestures, all means of avoiding what is unpleasant and preserving the mental balance. The behaviour results from these repressed qualities of instinctual energy and the binding of free-flowing anxiety.
Let there be no illusions; the isolation and objectification, as well as the working through of such resistances, usually takes months if not ears, demanding great effort, courage, and patience. The analyst needs to concentrate on ego defences and resistances when entering into the realm of strivings of the id. If you can penetrate the negative transference, the ego defences diminish, and the character armour can be removed. The ego projects onto the other as a defence against the id strivings, even if it is warding off a love striving, creating a neurotic disturbance. The ego becomes hardened from internal and external dangers and therefore becomes armoured. The armour is formed between the instinctual clashes in the outer world, which frustrate instinctual demands. The child with intense genital desires with a relatively weak ego, developed out of fear of being punished, seeks to protect itself by repression of damming of their impulses. The ego is transformed to ward off the terror by becoming compliant and submissive. However, this creates more anxiety, which needs another layer of protection. The anxiety threatens to weaken the fragile ego, bringing forward negative feelings and destructive impulses, which will be punished if expressed.
- The ego turns against itself with aggression, which is mobilised against the suppressive person, who has produced anxiety.
- The ego identifies with the frustrating reality personified in the figure of the suppressive person.
- The ego develops a reactive formation and attitude toward sexual striving. The ego utilises the energy of the strivings to serve its purpose, namely, towards suppression and anxiety.
The process gives the armouring its meaningful contents, which binds the essential elements of the aggressive energy, shutting off modes of motion and creating inhibition within the character. The ego withdraws libido from the repressed libidinal drives, and urgency is weakened. The fear of punishment sacrifices the desired energy and contains the prohibitions and standards of the parents. This develops as an emotional arrest and stops any chance of further education or experiential growth within the personality. The reaction formation allows the ego to go too far and become rigid, which precludes a regulated sexual life, and the instinctual forces are deprived of any energetic release. In the neurotic individual, these defence processes and positions overlap and interface. Every parental frustration causes a withdrawal of libido into the ego and the strengthening of secondary narcissism, with increased ego sensitivity and heightened anxiety. This frustrating object is usually the loved parent, whereby an ambivalent identification is internalised giant the child’s natural instincts.
The child will then develop guilt feelings about their instincts, which intensify with impulsive actions and can become compulsive or addictions.
The sex and character of the person who is mainly responsible for the child’s upbringing are of the greatest importance and influence, for the nature of one`s later sexual life is dependent on it. When the mother has a stronger liking for her son and frustrates less than the father, the boy will identify with the father and become masculine. If the mother is dominant and dependent on her own energetic stage of development, the boy will identify at the anal or phallic phase. At the anal stage, the boy becomes passive and feminine towards women but not towards men. At the phallic stage may become sadistic and revengeful towards women due to the strictness and taboos of his own mother. This represents the basis of musculature armour, bodybuilding, and athletic prowess, as a defence against phallic desires and castrations. The passive feminine character, who fears to realise and embrace his phallic desires, will shrink to a passive demeanour towards their father and any figure of authority with exaggerated politeness, compliance, and submission. He represses his masculine strivings to ward off his hatred of his father, where the ego ideal of the father has not been integrated and therefore has no phallic position. He will always be feminine but wants to be masculine with the creation of an inferiority complex.
A girl with an indulgent father will establish a feminine character as the father is responsive to her femininity. If her father is loving and caring, she can generate sensuous components and develop object love. A girl will, however, develop a hard-faced masculine character in response to a brutal father, which protects her infantile feminine towards her father, which had to be repressed because of his rejection, coldness, and numbness. Girls who repress desires due to a moralistic or authoritarian mother will forever be disappointed with men and sex, as her mother forebode these primitive desires with masculine authority. This generates an ambiguous side of hatred as the girl represses and withdraws to the oral stage of development, repressing her hatred and establishing a crippling dependency on her mother. She may become attracted to older women with little interest in men and her feminine qualities like childbearing.
Genital Vs Neurotic Character
The morality of the ego does not generate within the id or the narcissistic libidinal organism. Morality is a component borrowed from the intruding and menacing outer world, where the superego suppresses the id`s desires by interplay with the ego. Here are some examples of libido fixation stages for character development.
- Depressive character (Oral stage)
- Masochistic /Narcissistic (Phallic)
- Hysterical (Genital incest)
- Compulsive (Anal -sadistic)
The neurotic person`s means of gratification are inadequate to fulfil instinctual needs. At the same time, the genital character regulates the libido economy, and they have found ways to relieve libido tension and gratification conflicts.
Structure of the id
The genital character has attained post-ambivalence and conquered the incest desire. The desire to get rid of the father has been abandoned, and genital strivings have been projected onto a heterosexual object m who has taken over the role of the incest object. The oedipal complex has been resolved and is free of cathexis. The pregenital tendencies are released from repression, and they can share in the pleasures of direct sexual gratification. The neurotic cannot sufficiently discharge their free sublimated libido and may remain impotent. Their growth is disturbed by incest fixation, and sexual pleasure is inhibited. The infantile sexual fixation disturbs the orgasmic function and creates a stasis of libido, where the dammed-up libido intensifies at the pregenital fixation point. Because of this, over cathexis, the libidinal impulses creep into every culture and social activity.
Structure of the Superego
If there is no prohibition in the genital character of a sexual nature, the libido is gratified directly and not concealed by the strivings of the ego ideal. Social achievements are not proof of potency as they can provide natural gratification. The neurotic defeat of the oedipal complex means sexual prohibitions that interfere with all sexual relationships. The sexual repression of the ego and the attendant libido stasis will intensify sadistic impulses, expressed as a brutal code of morality. The greater the demands of the ego ideal, the more the ego becomes less and less efficient.
Structure of the ego
If the id is satisfied by the discharge of libidinal tension, then the superego does not need to be sadistic and is free of guilt feelings. The ego then takes possession and is free to gratify the genital libido. The person now has flexible armour to adapt to diverse expressions and experiences of love, hate, anger, or sadness. In the act of lovemaking, the ego Is free to only function as a form of perception, with the whole personality immersed in the experience of pleasure. They will no longer get lost in the experience as they have enough narcissistic foundation, which now sublimates the libido. The neurotic character is harmful towards the id and fawning towards the superego. However, they flirt with the id and routinely rebel against the superego, and are not totally sexually repressed.
The sexual act has been deemed beastly and dirty by a moralistic mother. The relationship with the outside world is myopic and contradictory as the personality lacks a complete experience. Impotence is compensated by irrational motives, which make it impossible to reach any rational decisions, as infantile attitudes and desires have negative effects. The superego is harsh towards the id, with a relentless demand for the gratification of needs. The ego develops feelings of guilt which it calls social conscience, and a need for revenge and punishment. The greater the libido’s stasis (period of inactivity), the more difficult it is to sublimate pregenital libido. Sexual fantasies absorb psychic interests and distract from work commitments. Reaction formation is spasmodic and compulsive, whereas sublimation flows freely when ego, id, and ego ideal directly contact reality.
If there is no prohibition in the genital character of a sexual nature, the libido is gratified directly and not concealed by the strivings of the ego ideal. Social achievements are not proof of potency as they can provide natural gratification. The neurotic defeat of the oedipal complex means sexual prohibitions that interfere with all sexual relationships. The sexual repression of the ego and the attendant libido stasis will intensify sadistic impulses, expressed as a brutal code of morality.
The greater the demands of the ego ideal, the more the ego becomes less and less efficient.
Sublimation is a deflective operation of the libidinal striving from the original goal, rechannelled to a higher socially valuable goal. With the reaction formation, the drive is turned against the self, where the original goal retains its cathexis in the unconscious, repressed and not relinquished. The original goal is flooded with libido, and the ego must continue transforming the cathexis into the counter goal, which becomes exhausting. The ego is in constant use and monitoring itself and not being effectively used for achievement and goals. This leads to a mounting libido stasis, and the ego will eventually fail in compensation for the libido. Either unconcealed neurotic anxiety is repressed, or symptoms emerge that dispense of free-flowing anxiety. The reaction formation is always rationalised.
Hysterical character
Comes with a fickle sense of actions, which can change on a whim, easily persuaded of impossible things, and will surrender beliefs for sexual attachment. They present with a childish demeanour, where fantastical experiences are deemed real. Fixated at the genital stage with an incestuous attachment where they derive genital aggression and anxiety. Easily excited when flooded with pregenital libido laden with unabsorbed sexual tension. The more anxious, the more arrogant and flirtatious the sexual activity, where ungratified impulses remain inhibited by genital anxiety. They will violently refuse to acknowledge or make sense of their behaviour and claim you are making insinuations. They have little interest in sublimation and intellectual accomplishments, as the libido does not advance to sexual gratification, and sexual energy is not adequately bound.
Compulsive Character
Works with a pedantic sense of order as change arouses anxiety with a circumstantial, ruminative way of thinking. Unable to focus on what Is important and detailed work, and only interested in the superficial. Fixated at the anal-sadistic stage, full of indecisions, doubt and distrust as potty training caused great ambivalence, fear and confusion. This leads to extreme self-control, with a powerful anal obstinacy that mobilises sadistic impulses. They have separate affect from their ideas and armour any genuine ideas emerging into consciousness. All their muscles, especially the pelvic region, are rigid, hard in appearance and in chronic hypertonia. The ego has an anal holding back tendency that wards off oppression and punishment.
Phallic narcissistic character
Self-assured, arrogant, and inflated ego, usually smart and well-dressed. An aggressive display of superiority, where they want and need to dominate those beneath them. They form strong attachments to idealised people, objects, and ideas. They tend to use their penis as an instrument of aggression, wreaking revenge on women, due to major disappointments in maternal mother`s attunement and love. The mother is retained as the desired object but with infantile attitudes and processes, seeking to prove their power over women.
Masochistic character
Lives with a chronic subjective feeling of suffering and oppression, with a strong intolerance of psychic tensions. They are good at provoking loved ones who have disappointed them, trying to court love and attention through provocation and defiance. They can’t endure being alone as much as they can’t bear losing a love relationship. As they can’t endure the loss of contact, they will also attempt the self-pity and misery game to attain attention. If the child tried to gain warmth from their mother`s body, they would be rebuffed and severely punished. They normally assume submissive roles in life, countered with dreams of heroic acts and achievements. Because of the anal fixation, self-deprecation appears when making sexual contact with an adult, as feelings of impotence arise, and cathexis is withdrawn from the genital zones. They need to liberate their libido from pregenital fixation and eliminate their genital anxiety.
Psychic condition
The original antithesis between the ego and the outer world, and narcissism between object libido.The antithesis between the libido (striving in the outer world ) and anxiety ( narcissistic escape back into the ego from an unpleasant world ). Major contradictions and contractions between stretching forward and pulling back and holding in the libido. The ungratified need may urge the individual to seek contact with the outer world, regardless of how unpleasant that may be. Flight from anxiety into controlling the body and muscular flight, removing the source of the danger to resolve tensions. The hysterical person retreats in the face of danger, whilst the compulsive wants to destroy it.
As we can see, the two conflicting strivings towards the world.
- The gratification of need (libido)
- Avoidance of states of anxiety and destroy the source of danger (destructive aggression)
- Love (libido) Vs hate (destruction)
Guilt is generated when there are conflicts between the feeling of love and hate towards the same object. This directly corresponds to the intensity of inhibited aggression and anxiety levels. One may seek to return to the maternal womb, where there are eternal peace and protection from the outer world and reality. The libido impulse is invested in narcissistic repression and the creation of a death instinct.
Where one action turns against another (reaction formation), but the original goal continues in the original direction, paralysis or rigidity arises. This leads to inner isolation and deadness, with a passive, polite demeanour with a strong genital attachment to their mother still. The child was rejected when they attempted to approach their mother sensually and bodily and had to deaden their bodily sensations to remain attached. The aggressive impulse checks the sexual impulse, or vice versa, in constant conflict, stopping any free flow of both at once. The client`s silence is normally due to their inability to articulate their inner impulses. The fear of orgiastic contact constitutes the core of the fear of any genuine, direct psychic contact. Unable to process reality effectively.
Successful character analysis
- A thorough dissolution of the armour
- Complete development of the fear of orgiastic contact
- The complete overcoming of orgiastic inhibition, with the establishing of total inhibition, with voluntary movement at the moment of climax or sensation.
Armouring
In the experience of “holding Back”, the body is contracting, with pulled-back shoulders, a thrust-out chest, with a superficial appearance, an immobilised pelvis and a general deadened expression. We are concerned with how we can penetrate the function of the biological depth and deduce the true functioning of the organism. The individual cannot break down their own armour and express their true biological nature, only capable of venting their anger. The excessive strain on the peripheral muscles and the nervous system causes the organism to be acutely sensitive to pressure. They can’t rust certain parts of their body without producing a manifestation of acute anxiety or nervousness, especially sexual organs. One develops the incapacity for plasmatic pulsation and convulsions within the sexual act, developing impotence and stasis (inactivity) or sexual energy.
Any new flow in energy may result in spasms, highlighting a new struggle between impulses and the armour block. The blockage of any plasmatic current at narrow points in the body develops as acute anxiety. As soon as the armour block has been dissolved, there is free movement and a sense of surrender in the body part. If the movement to surrender is obstructed, the impulse to surrender is transformed into a destructive rage. Inhibited rage is transformed into muscular spasms, which are usually contained as contempt for the sexual organs.
Evil represents the perverted nature of man, where anti-social drives are derived from no spiritual or cosmic function, blocked off in most human beings. Homo normalis may look socially adapted and function effectively but may also express their impulsive secondary drives by indulging in orgies or other sadistic acts.
The individual will continue to use projections as a method to block anxiety, but this limits perception and further detachment from organismic function, creating delusions of one`s sensory perceptions. As true excitation is not experienced or perceived, one must be rationalised and made up to warrant the behaviour or belief. The production of senseless words increases as the split between excitation and perception increases. If one had true self-perception, consciousness would be clean and complete.
The Emotional Plague
A chronic biopathy of the organism, where the repression of genital sexuality becomes an endemic disease. This unspoken disease has tormented man and the world for thousands of years, leading to wars, cancer, and heart failure. The plague-afflicted individual is seized by frenzy; when their views are challenged, they may fragment, fall apart, and fight back against any new perception or idea. They will be impelled to fight, like fighting for their existence, destroying the imagined-provoking others to ease their inner angst.
Thinking – The genital character (GS) has objective facts and processes, where judgment is based on a thought process, open to objective arguments. The neurotic character (NC) will use various means of avoidance, which may produce displeasure regarding their rigid and concrete thinking. Unable to absorb any new insights or correction and locked in irrational thinking.
Acting – GS’s motives and goals are all in harmony, rationally and socially orientated in accordance with nature. Always striving for improvement in their condition of life. The NC is limited in their activity, whose motives are devoid of affect or contradictory to the action taken.
Sexuality – The GS takes pleasure in sexual happiness and enjoys contact with others and offspring. The NC lives a secret perverted sexual life, ruled by anxiety when they meet a sexual experience. Cultural and religious doctrines may pierce the individual, where acts of sadism or investment in pornography may appear. The demand for asceticism (denial) is directed not only against oneself but also in a sadistic way against the natural sexuality of others. To alleviate the sexual angst, they may tunnel the anxiety into social groups and mould public opinion to their distorted reality.
Work – The GS is actively interested in developing its work process, allowing it to take a natural course. Work becomes enjoyable and does not consume resentful energy, where the product/service is developed in harmony with a natural expression. The NC is restricted at work, where sexual energy distracts from the work process, and unresolved tensions eliminate concentration and discipline to develop their work progression. Someone possessed by the emotional plague (EP) hates the burden of work and will run away from any form of responsibility or small detailed jobs, which require patience and have little reward. Unable to examine or initiate a step-by-step method to accomplish goals, usually becomes an ideologue, mystic, or politician. These don’t require insight, patience, flexibility, or organic development. Fearful of public opinion or work gossip creates extreme conformity and compliance to keep one hidden but becomes totally resigned and resentful.
Where the child’s parents were in constant battles or where one is ostracised and demonised, the child regresses, is forced to take sides, and develops a distorted view of love and reality. The child becomes an unwilling witness of disturbed parents, acting like children in parental roles. No wonder the next generation continues to be plagued by emotional regression or sexual inhibition. How have we overlooked this disease that ravages humanity now and for ages, concealed in the denial of nature? The Emotional plague is well-defended and anticipates dangers everywhere, hypervigilant and hypersensitive, creating inhumane and dysfunctional adults.
The medical orgonomist dedicates all their efforts and energies to unmasking and combating the plague as it rampages across humanity. One must first understand how the plague works within themselves and others and seek medical help if needed, not invest and indulge in the political arena to relieve their anxiety. As one`s inner helplessness diminishes, the plague becomes exposed, weaker, and may eventually eat itself. We need to re-establish the natural love life of children, adolescents, and adults, which can then rid the world of character neuroses and the emotional plague in its various forms.
Reich, w. (1980) Character analysis: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc; 3rd ed. edition
