This paper is a clinical presentation of the evolution of a hypochondriacal syndrome with depression which progressed to frank paranoid delusions about the psychiatrist. The patient received twenty electric shock treatments. Psychotherapy was given—more than two hours on some days—and the homosexual component of the patient's libidinal attachments was interpreted. Thinly disguised Oedipal masturbatory fantasies emerged in which the mother-in-law was the fantasied partner. The patient meanwhile improved. As usually happens in hypochondriasis, the patient's ego had surrendered to an aggressive, sadistic superego, which represented the father. The patient recovered and remains well three years later.