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It is a fact of our common observation that an occasional compulsiveness in counting is one of the manifestations of the psychopathology of everyday life. En route to the theatre, for example, many persons remain uneasy and only become more comfortable after they have counted their tickets again although they know they have the correct number. It is not uncommon for us to note the occasional occurrence of compulsive counting in patients who consult us for other reasons which are far more important to them. It is rather rare, however, for a counting compulsion to be one of the principal complaints which brings a person to analysis, so that only infrequently do we have the opportunity to investigate the significance of such a problem quite extensively. Inasmuch as counting is itself intimately related to our psychological conceptions of time and space, whatever additional information we can gain about compulsive counting may throw further light on these phenomena, about which our knowledge remains incomplete. This communication will confine itself to the probable ætiological factors in a counting compulsion and its significance in the psychic economy of a young married woman who came into analysis.
Only a few articles on this subject have appeared in the psychoanalytical literature. Freud (1895) wrote briefly about a woman who 'became obliged to count the boards in the floor, the steps in the staircase, etc.—acts which she performed in a state of ridiculous distress. She had begun the counting in order to turn her mind from obsessive ideas of temptation. She had succeeded in so doing, but the impulse to count had replaced the original obsession.'
Hárnik (1924) referred to Reik and to Róheim, who had emphasized the sadistic element in counting and the rôle of dominating, controlling and taking possession of objects through this process. Róheim had observed that the Seri Indians, who had a most primitive economic system, were interested in the undigested, and the