Since the work of Abraham and Wilhelm Reich, psychoanalysts have become increasingly interested in the understanding and treatment of character disorder. The effort to conceptualize the nature and pathology of character has been one of the major forces behind the development of psychoanalytic ego psychology. However, most theories of the ego so far formulated consist of a hodge-podge of concepts from the theory of instinctual drives with a rather mysterious, relatively autonomous ego tacked on. It is out of this background of theoretical confusion that David Shapiro's new work, Autonomy and Rigid Character, comes. In it Shapiro tries to analyze the nature of human autonomy and its pathology in the rigid character of compulsive, paranoid, sadistic and masochistic personalities.