The analysis is outlined of a patient with character difficulties, neurotic vomiting and diarrhoea and the syndrome of anorexia nervosa. The organic dysfunctions are shown to be somatic manifestations of a highly complex disorder of personality arising from severe early emotional conflicts, especially in the oral sphere. The most important specific psychodynamism of the patient's vomiting appears to be a symbolic rejection and restitution of her father's phallus, orally incorporated in an attempt to render exclusive her basic passive dependence on her mother; however, the symptom also expresses an aggressive attack on her thwarting parents, masochistic expiation and other psychic overdeterminants. These and other psychosomatic reactions are considered in relation to the present psycho-analytic concepts of the various gastro-intestinal neuroses.

Author's Summary.