ABSTRACT
Among the most important aspects of ego psychology is the study of what is termed character. From a knowledge of character one can derive a number of crucial guidelines for helping the authors' clients and patients and, if necessary, ourselves. This chapter introduces the major ideas most relevant to the general notion of character in ego psychology. It demonstrates some of these ideas in the authors' discussion of the obsessive-compulsive. The teaching of characterology, then, is as good a place as any in which to describe to the student a concrete series of frequently encountered defensive maneuvers. Some personality features go together with other personality features. The personality as a whole constitutes a kind of gestalt, whose parts are interdependent one with another. The outstanding characteristic of the oral character is his greed. Fixation at the oral-biting phase is more likely to be represented in the demandingness which also is a frequent attribute of oral characters.
