ABSTRACT
The schizoid character disorders are distinguished by the fact that the symptom lies in the way of being. To express it in a more popular contemporary jargon, symptom takes the form of an existentialist stance. This chapter discusses some features of the schizoid person’s affectivity, internal psychic reality and object-relations. Foremost among the psychical mechanisms used was that of phobic withdrawal. In psycho-analytic literature phobic mechanisms have been discussed largely in terms of the inner threat from heightened instinctual tension, its projection to the external object or situation, and then an attempt to deal with it by regressive phobic rejection. The phobic mechanisms were a means of initiating withdrawal to this ‘special’ self and led to its intensive re-cathexis in their apathic states of self-absorption. The chapter describes the result of extensive reconstructive analytic work in terms of the transference relation and the analytic setting.
