ABSTRACT. Given that Robert Schumann is highly likely to have been a borderline personality (constantly and fiercely fighting over inner conflicts like socially-correct masculinity and barely repressed femininity, or behavioural conflicts like warm-hearted closeness and reclusive distance), we will work on the premise that his obsessive-compulsive style is mostly based on conscientiousness (being workaholic, perfectionist, and conformist) and hardly based on neuroticism (never growing into a full-fledged disorder). We will then focus on this obsessive-compulsive style that goes through two distinct phases: his over-intensive piano training, virtually neuroticism-free; and, whilst concurrently so and beginning on 26 January 1830, take or leave a few days, his self-imposed routine and reserve while at first making anxiety-loaded efforts to keep his focal dystonia under control – not in the least by getting a special home-made contraption to help him function without the right middle finger, and also by creating toccata arias to help him get over this most distressing handicap.

Keywords: obsessive-compulsive style; borderline personality disorder; Robert Schumann; conscientiousness; neuroticism-free; neuroticism-loaded