" The question arises: What do neurotics really want from psychotherapy?
Consciously the answer is simple: They want help for their suffering. Unconsciously the story is much more complicated and the answer by no means simple. In their various neuroses neurotics unconsciously enjoy deep masochistic pleasures, camouflaged by the various defenses that constitute their symptoms and personality quirks. These are attached to different "rescue stations" of libidinous or pseudoaggressive nature, depending on what level of infantile development they finally reached. What is practically amounts to is that penance is paid in the form of symptoms, inhibitions, personality distortions causing conscious unhappiness, for the underlying and hidden unconscious happiness. That "happiness" does not rest on living out instinctual drives but on maintaining the neurotic balance by multiple defense mechanisms achieved vis-a-vis the torturing inner conscience. Hence the neurotic fights for his inner defenses, especially his masochistic defense. Every neurotic rescued "something" from the infantile debacle, and to that "something" he holds on for dear life. "

― Edmund Bergler ,