Freud began the study of character with his paper on 'Character and anal erotism' (Freud, 1908). Up until the 1930s, 'character' was a core construct in psychoanalysis, and yet, in all that time no one, not even Freud, had discussed the clinical approach to character. Reich's (1928) paper 'On character analysis', therefore, was the pioneering effort to do so.

In his writing about character analysis, Reich only focuses on the analysis of resistance. The reason for this stance was discussed as it related to Freud's ideas about the analysis of resistance. The relevance of Reich's focus for contemporary psychoanalysis was also discussed.