From the first hardcover edition dust jacket:

Neurotic Styles is an original, clinical study of four kinds of neurosis--obsessive-compulsive, paranoid, hysterical, and impulsive--and of the special characteristics of each.

As background for his studies, Dr. Shapiro first reviews significant theoretical and research contributions to the psychology of character since Freud, including the contributions to this subject of Wilhelm Reich, Erik H. Erikson, George S. Klein, and others.

Drawing on his own extensive clinical observation, he then examines in close detail the ways of thinking and perceiving, forms of emotion experience, modes of activity, and behavioral manifestations--the "style"--that characterize these four kinds of neurosis. Of considerable psychiatric interest is Dr. Shapiro's analysis of the relationship between paranoid and obsessive-compulsive styles.

In a summary chapter, he explores--in the light of these studies--some basic questions concerning the origin and development of styles; how their development is influenced by instinctual drives; their possible significance for drive-tension control and regulation; and their relationship to defense mechanisms.