Features from the analyses of two patients are presented to illustrate how exhibitionistic and masochistic impulses may be allowed gratification while essentially serving a defensive purpose, i.e. to avoid the narcissistic injury arising from non-fulfilment of infantile genital wishes. In both cases there was a common denominator in the affective sphere. Both patients were constantly being humiliated and betrayed. This had occurred in the past and in the present both within and outside the analysis. The transference was permeated by sadomasochistic influences. Spiegel lays emphasis on the necessity to interpret not the id derivatives now expressed regressively but the defence against the injury to narcissism. The patient must be confronted with the fact that the transference humiliation