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The following observations were made during the first ten weeks of the psychoanalytic treatment of a student of technology, twenty-two years of age, who suffered from a marked difficulty in concentrating his attention on his studies, complained of sexual inadequacy, and was accepted by the Institute for Psychoanalysis as a research case because, apart from these complaints, he had a duodenal ulcer.
From the beginning of the analysis, the material centered around certain oral trends and conflicts which, in keeping with the schizoid coloring of his personality, have been close enough to consciousness to find unusually clear expression. Because of the interesting nature of the verbalizations by which the patient has given expression to his weakly repressed material, many verbatim quotations are included from the free-associations. Genetic explanations and reconstructions, which are not warranted in this early phase of the analysis, are avoided, and the description will be confined to the surface attitudes and the immediate dynamic background which the patient has revealed since the beginning of his treatment.
The patient is the middle brother of three, three years apart. He is "the cleverest but a slacker", and expresses envy and jealousy of his older brother who, according to him, is less intelligent but a harder worker. The youngest is poor in scholastic achievement, but has more social grace. The father, an uneducated but ambitious and successful business man, has ruled the family with a violent temper which has mellowed somewhat in recent years. The patient fears him and resents his authority. The father, since an ulcer operation several years ago, disregards gastric symptoms and dietary restriction. The mother is considered intellectually inferior to the father,