Just as antiperistalsis with vomiting represents pathological physiology that produces health by ejecting noxious substances, so also some pieces of behavior are pathologic but have the unconscious purpose of achieving a higher level of health or maturity. Several illustrations of such distinctly pathological behavior are given, with the distinction drawn between those manifestations that are prophylactic and those that are merely outcroppings of faulty psychodynamic processes without such therapeutic goal. The grossly irrational behavior of such patients, when properly analyzed, clarifies the deeper dynamics and allows the analysand to comprehend what must otherwise seem to him thoroughly 'stupid' behavior calling for severe and enduring self-recrimination.