Consider the movie Patton, and the well-known scene where the general slaps a soldier who is suffering from battle fatigue. This is rather extreme behavior even for a hardened military leader, and...

Consider the movie Patton, and the well-known scene where the general slaps a soldier who is suffering from battle fatigue. This is rather extreme behavior even for a hardened military leader, and Patton is subsequently disciplined. Might this behavior indicate that Patton unconsciously detested weakness in himself? Is his love for war suffi cient evidence to classify him as “moving against people,” an orientation where helplessness is repressed because it is incompatible with the desire for mastery? Patton’s ill-advised clashes with his superiors did him more harm than good; might this suggest the lack of fl exibility that is typical of the neurotic solutions, namely an inability to abandon the “moving against” orientation even when it would have been to his advantage to do so?