Using as a starting-point the rarely discussed case of the painter Haitzmann ('A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis'), which Freud used as an illustration in connection with 'Mourning and Melancholia' and "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego', Bittner presents a critique of the 'one-way' theory of earliest object relations and of 'ocnophil' prejudices (Balint) in psychoanalytic technique. The demonological concept of 'pact with the devil' means an object relationship offering security in exchange for 'salvation' and personal freedom. Since conflicts between the quest for security and autonomy are possible, the assumption of only one narcissistic regulatory principle seems to need modification. Early mother–child relations, like those between analyst and patient, can take on the qualities of a pact with the devil.