The analysis of a patient with character difficulties, neurotic vomiting and diarrhoea and the syndrome of anorexia nervosa is outlined. The organic dysfunctions are shown to be somatic manifestations of a highly complex personality disorder arising from severe early emotional conflicts, especially in the oral sphere. The most important specific psychodynamism of the vomiting appears to be a symbolic rejection and restitution of the father's phallus, orally incorporated in an attempt to render exclusive her basic passive dependence on the mother; however, the symptom also expresses an aggressive attack on the thwarting parents, masochistic expiation and other psychic overdeterminants. These and other psychosomatic reactions are considered in relation to the present psychoanalytic concepts of the various gastro-intestinal neuroses.