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The morbid history of a case in which the disease probably developed in connexion with a cerebral injury, is given to show how far apparently purely organic symptoms are determined by psychic mechanisms, and how far they can be changed by means of psychotherapy. The patient, aged 37, was admitted to the Heidelberg Clinic of Psychiatry after attempting to murder his mother-in-law. The prosecution was dropped because he was thought to be suffering from narcolepsy. The history, which is given in detail, showed that the patient was healthy until he was severely wounded by the explosion of a shell during the war. He recovered sufficiently to return to military service but thereafter suffered from occasional fits during which he lost consciousness, and attacked his fellow soldiers. These fits had not been recognized as such until the last one, which brought him into conflict with the law. He had never had any epileptic convulsions. The treatment at the clinic was conducted on the lines of the cathartic method (hypnosis): the various events of the past as they were known from his history were given as hypnotic suggestions. A suggestion of one of his "fits" produced important material which drew the attention to one particular event, namely, his taking part in a military offensive operation. When this attack was mentioned he again went through the experiences of this offensive with the whole gamut of its emotions of aggression and fear of death. The narcoleptic states, which were always combined with aggressive attitudes, let him repeat the situation of that offensive and seemed to act as a spontaneous catharsis owing to the particular level of consciousness in these fits, which allowed the patient to discharge his emotional tension. 'We dare say, although it is difficult to prove, that a deeper regression would have been produced if the aggression had been more deeply repressed than was actually the case. Motor fits would probably have been the result instead