ABSTRACT

A middle-aged male patient of mine once dreamed that after being tried in some fantasy tribunal, he was alone, sitting on top of a mountain, sucking his own penis, which was three feet long. Laziness inevitably becomes embroiled in mental conflicts, either between people or within a person; and the most common element of mental functioning that opposes laziness is shame. Laziness is prominent during each stage of child and adolescent development, and persists in normal adults. Compromise formation, on the other hand, helps explain symptoms and character pathology so that, as people know more about their compromise formations, they can become more autonomous—that is, freer from constrictions of their own making. A successful woman attorney, on turning sixty-five, presented for evaluation because of anxiety attacks and insomnia. The solution for any woman must somehow balance pleasure, duty to children and home, and identity and reality issues surrounding work.