In North America chronic welfare dependency (CWD) is a serious problem that involves millions of individuals, cost billions of tax dollars, and represents a great waste of human resources. It is postulated that CWD, over the past 30 years, has been conceptualized too simplistically and relatively unimportant variables have been emphasized in rehabilitation programs. This study suggests that, whatever the etiological factors, CWD represents a complex set of interacting personality factors. The personality factors associated with CWD suggest that rehabilitation programs need to employ multimodal and sophisticated psychotherapeutic strategies, especially those developed for the treatment of anxiety and the neuroses.