This is an account of a specific defence encountered in male patients whose character is predominantly narcissistic. Such patients offer the analyst some favour which it is in their power to grant. In this way they ward off fear of the analyst and the analysis. The presenting symptom of these patients was not anxiety; they entered analysis for some other reason. The defence described served as a bribe either to spare them from something in the analysis (e.g. anxiety) or to give them something they could not get elsewhere (e.g. lvoe).