Investigating patterns of behavior in a patient permanently affected by early psychosomatic diseases, Grinker concludes that subjective recollections alone can shed light upon only a part of the total physical, psychological, and social effects. Descriptive terms such as sadism and masochism prove to be artificial polarities which acquire a different meaning when traced to the early mother-child symbiosis from which later behavior forms evolve. 'It is the genesis of these early ego patterns, not the psychogenesis, that is an important new area of research' which properly calls for multidisciplinary observations.