The case studies of three young women are used to illustrate how strict prohibitions to marry outside their ethnic background led to its opposite: a fixation to love only men from outside their ethnic background. The conflict between parental expectations and their ego-ideal - their self-defined developmental goals - and their sense of entrapment manifested itself as depression and feelings of inadequacy due to narcissistic loss. Through the process of psychoanalytic psychotherapy the cultural love and hate issues that were interfering with the individual's self-integratory function and the primacy of the self were resolved in all three women, promoting the desired personality consolidation. Their interests are no longer focused on escaping what they perceived as constricting ethnic home; nor are they restricted to finding a man from outside their ethnic background, but rather in finding psychological stability with men who can meet their emotional and intellectual needs.