Studying phobic symptomatology, the author shows that displacement in phobias is a biphasic act. Symptom formation begins with an inhibitory act, i.e. repression and fantasy formation, and is followed by an unconscious ego activity which materializes in phobic avoidance. It is more difficult to describe the defensive activities in obsessive thoughts which present themselves as symptoms. The content of the obsessive thought is easy to interpret. (In the case quoted it was oedipal and preoedipal hostility.) The obsessive thought appears to be a release of the original now desexualized impulse. The desexualization creates the character of emptiness and alienation which marks the obsessive experience. The affectlessness of the obsessive patient gives way to anxiety whenever in the analytic process the defences are understood and analysed.