The paper deals with those patients who seize upon a current reality which seems insurmountable to them and make it the exclusive theme of their associations. This hypercathexis of a reality situation draws its intensity from two sources. One is that the situation represents an important, if not the most vital, element of the patient's neurosis—an infantile wish appropriately displaced on to reality. The other is the fear of relinquishing the substitutive or expected gratification of this wish.