Three examples are offered, two from child and one from an adult analysis, to indicate the clinical significance of the rhyme. 'The rhyme itself is a simple dramatization of the second catastrophic trauma a child experiences (if birth is the first), viz. the arrival of a sibling. Humpty Dumpty then symbolizes both the first- and second-born; and the fall, the sibling's birth, the first-born's hostile wish that the same disaster befall the sibling.' 'The wall represents the mother, mother love, parental esteem, and the narcissistic omnipotence of the first-born.'