ABSTRACT
I n ‘Clinical aspects of the schizoid personality’ (Khan, 1960a ) I tried to give a general clinical picture of a schizoid type of character-disorder. Here I shall single out for discussion one aspect of these patients, namely a special latent emotionality and affectivity, which expresses itself through polymorph-perverse body-experiences and object-relations. My emphasis is on the role and pathology of these polymorph-perverse body-relations. I hope to show how they derive from specific disturbances in the infant-mother relationship, which result from pathogenic features in the mother’s personality. I have been greatly helped in the formulation of my hypothesis by the researches of Deutsch (1942), Eissler (1953), A. Freud (1952, 1954a ), Greenacre (1953a , 1959, 1960b , c ), Hoffer (1952), James (1960), Lewin (1950), Milner (1952), Sterba (1957) and Winnicott (1949, 1951), all of whom have discussed this type of emotionality and body-ego disturbance from different angles.
