Since disturbances of the body image can be the result of organic disorders as well as of essentially psychodynamic factors, the principle of twofold genesis can be applied to these phenomena. The author reports histories of depressive or schizophrenic patients, particularly of the involutional age group, in which a distorted relation of the patient to changes in his own body seem to be the essential pathogenic factor. The disturbance is expressed in hypochondriac delusions and in partial or total depersonalization which result from changes in the cathexis of narcissistic libido. Bychowski compares them with organic disorders like meningitis and cerebral concussion, in which similar symptoms of alteration in the body image determine the psychological manifestations of the illness. Finally, a case of autoscopy is presented: a lonely patient deteriorating in poverty and drunkenness had created the image of a companion, an alter ego. A disintegration of this type in the image of one's own personal past has been made the theme of poetry and it plays a rôle in magic concepts of ghosts and detached souls.