Governor Spitzer is not a hypocrite although his contradictory behavior is surely hypocritical. Rather he is probably representative of a large group of psychological disorders characterized by an internal struggle often illustrated by that of a fight between virtue and sin. We call these cases personality disorders exhibiting a vertical split in which an otherwise honorable individual periodically engages in behavior which is abhorrent to them. These behaviors range from lying to thievery, from excessive shopping to substance abuse. All of these individuals are suffering from what in psychoanalysis is termed a narcissistic disorder and most of these individuals are treatable by psychoanalysis or psychoanalytically-informed psychotherapy.
If the misbehavior is sexual, there is a tendency to consider these troubled individuals as sexual addicts or as perverts. It is important to recognize that sexual problems are usually not at the heart of vertically split individuals. Our research has shown that these supposed sexual disorders are problems of self pathology or, again, disorders of narcissism. A branch of psychoanalysis termed self psychology has studied and reported on such cases in two books: Being of Two Minds and Errant Selves. The first book describes and explains the phenomenon of the vertical split. The second is a collection of case examples. Again, it is important that we see these cases as objectively as possible and recognize them as treatable forms of psychopathology rather than as manifestations of sin.