ABSTRACT
This chapter describes character: a repetitive, stylistic, personality, attitudinal, cognitive, and behavioral pattern that develops throughout the lives of patients and can be obvious to both the trained and untrained eye—if you are observant. The chapter defines character armor, what influences its development, healthy and destructive character styles, how to work with character in the present. Character analysis confronts the defenses that will defeat interventions based on content, such as “supportive” approaches, cognitive behavioral therapies, and so on. In the character is the resistance, and when avoided, it results in destruction of the therapeutic relationship. Specific interventions are explained so the technique can be learned. Reich’s structure of the psyche is defined: core (basic healthy drives), secondary layer (distortions based on blocked feelings and disturbed responses), and facade (social personality). A critical clinical concept pertaining to both patient and therapist is contact, a state of energetic aliveness or the absence of energetic awareness. Field theory is referenced to describe how contact and contactlessness are experienced in the therapeutic exchange and what information can be gleaned about the therapist or the patient from this perspective. Guidelines for methodical interventions are delineated as well as the technique of tracking moment by moment. Case examples of couple and individual patients are described.
