The unusually interesting case of a psychotic boy of five. His precocious intellectual development, lack of normal child-interests, grandiose ideas about being an adult served to avoid the dangerous situation of being a child. He was unable to pronounce 'I, ' 'you' and the names of bodily parts—his lack of interest in concrete things was connected with this—because by doing so they would become real, and if real could be destroyed. His speech idiosyncrasies and word tabooes were caused by his belief in the magic power of words and by connection with obscene words. One