This is an account of the analysis of a 3-year-old child unable to relate to adults or children, or comprehend the meaning of everyday events around her. Withdrawn attitudes alternated with senseless hyperactivity and meaningless excited talking. Poor motor control combined with regressive sexual and aggressive behaviour. By careful and systematic interpretation of defences against her oral-phallic wishes and anxieties, it became possible to elucidate the extent to which the child's oral proclivities, complementary character difficulties in the parents, and an unsuspected seduction to fellatio had contributed to the disturbance. The analysis succeeded in freeing her sociability, and establishing her capacity to learn at age level. Considerable development in superego was also effected.