Using an example of a case of hypertension, the psychoanalytic interpretation of neurosis as a disturbed formative-experiential process (Habermas) and the resulting structural theory are reviewed. The patient's disturbance consisted of a compulsively recurrent, ego-alien, unconscious misinterpretation of certain situations which reminded him of the mastered oedipal authority situation. Following the infantile 'solution' of the ambivalence conflict with the father by means of projective externalization, the conflict area remained split off from the maturational processes of the ego. The meaning of the psychosomatic reaction was a readiness for fight or flight which, defectively symbolized, corresponded to the misinterpreted situation. The revival of the infantile conflict in the transference permits the correction of the distorted (and distorting) symbolization.