Certain social conflicts with objects accompany the conflicts arising from the satisfaction or suppression of erotic, anal impulses. This was long ago emphasized by Freud in his conception of 'anal character'. The subsequent progress of ego psychology makes it possible to describe these facts in greater detail. Object relationships and their development have to be studied with the same intensity as the erotogenic zones. Landauer's basic thoughts are very convincing; but is he not going too far when he says 'that it is not the erotogenic zones, but the social demands' which are responsible for character formation; or when he says: 'The center of interest is now shifted from the sexual zone and aim to the factor of social demands and the reaction to these.' Psychoanalytic characterology, it seems to the reviewer, serves to clarify just this interoperation and the interrelationship between instinctive forces and social demands. Landauer's clinical examples are good illustrations of that interrelationship.