Doderer's book is presented as a kind of educative novel, the hero extricating himself from pre-oedipal ties and developing to independence (stable identity, object constancy). The conflict, involving the main character and various minor figures (including the the author), results from the struggle of the sense of reality against symbiotic regressive tendencies. The 'Strudlhofstiege' symbolizes a relationship without loss of self as opposed to separation anxiety and twin fantasies. The conflicts and attempted solutions which Doderer developed in poetic categories are retraced by Dettmering by means of psychoanalytic terms and theories.