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There is little known psychoanalytically regarding the syndrome of hair-pulling and hair-eating. This is true also for the symptom of cyclic vomiting which presents a vague medical entity of unknown origin. Because of the fulminating course and the severe dehydration and acidosis which such patients develop during attacks, they present medical emergencies and are rarely seen by psychoanalysts, and in the free intervals they seem to function adequately and not to require treatment. I had the opportunity to treat psychoanalytically a patient with these symptoms and I would like to present analytic material which provides insight into the dynamics of these symptoms and of their role in the psychosexual life of such a patient. The technical aspects of this analysis, especially of the first three months of treatment, will be reported in another paper. Here I wish only to state that no parameters were used after the second month of analysis because it was found that any deviation from the strict analytic technique provoked severe resistances in the patient.
The patient was not yet 16 years old at the time analysis began. The cyclic vomiting had occurred suddenly after a party at the age of 13½ and was associated with anorexia nervosa. It was of a very severe nature and recurred with every menstruation, necessitating hospitalization with nearly every menstrual period prior to analysis and two hospitalizations during the first two months of analysis. She did not respond to any medical treatment including daily injections of a hormone especially prepared for her.
After three months of analysis when there had been a marked improvement of the cyclic vomiting and anorexia the patient began to talk about her preoccupation with hair. She revealed that she had been pulling and eating hair since early childhood. She would pull the hair from places "where there was lots of hair", and when she developed public hair she would pull her pubic hair and eat it. She remembered tha