The minimum data from two cases of severe feeding problems in young children are presented to demonstrate that a mother's conflicts and anxieties may be re-enacted in her child's development with a remarkable similarity. The similarity in the manifest behavior, the choice of organ or symptom, becomes

obvious. There is also a parallel between the mother's and child's underlying dynamic attitude to their unconscious conflicts. Attempts to resolve them by establishing specific defensive measures are alike.

In each case the history obtained from the mother indicates that in her relationship to the grandmother (her mother) a similar struggle over food and deprivation constituted a central conflict in early childhood.