The patient's neurosis seems to have been precipitated by her return to the parents after four years at college. Claustrophobia represented the struggle between her independent strivings

and the dependent infantile wishes to return to the mother, even to enter her body. Genital desires were inhibited by the taboo of incest and by an extremely masochistic conception of female sexual functioning. To the latter she reacted with castrative aggressions but consciously she defended herself from these aggressions by presenting a façade of humility and sweetness, of conciliatory rituals and expiations.