ABSTRACT

The root word for ‘patience’ is ‘patient’ which, in turn, is derived from Middle English pacient and Greek pema. This chapter examines the quality of patience in its phenomenological nuance, its developmental origins, its cultural variations, and its psychopathological distortions. The Chinese word for patience is nai-sin, which underscores the capacity for tolerance as a character trait. Patience is also required for developing genuine intimacy with others and, by implication, for love. Building and maintaining a household, raising children, and attending to aging parents also demands patience. The oral impatience worsened if it was conflated with “urethral-erotic ambition” that later appeared on the developmental scene. O. Fenichel took the role of ego-weakness into account as well while elaborating upon the anaemia of patience and the resulting incapacity to wait. Chronic hurrying is infrequently recognized and written about though often encountered in clinical practice.