A case report of an adult male in the first four years of his analysis has been presented. He had been troubled throughout his life by certain grandiose fantasies and disturbed relationships. The meaning of these disturbances has been discussed with a view to their connection with an early childhood relationship in which a grandiose self image was pathologically reinforced. Early childhood trauma interfered with the normal developmental maturation of narcissism, and a grandiose self persisted without transformation into the adult life of this patient. Traces of this grandiosity have been viewed as threads woven into the fabric of the patient's character structure.