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The quantity of lacrimal secretion is small under ordinary circumstances, but increases when foreign stimuli enter the conjunctival sac. The power of tears to wash away irritants is symbolically extended to painful excitations of any part of the physical and psychological structure of the organism; they are a physiological means of relieving the state of tension generated by the stimulus, thus re-establishing the pleasurable absence of tension. Any stimulus that threatens to penetrate the protective barrier of the ego may evoke this reaction. Since such stimuli violate the narcissistic state of well-being, weeping like any other mechanism of defense is stimulated by injuries to narcissism. Any defense that seeks to maintain homeostasis by warding off a disturbing factor is regressive in nature. Weeping appears during the fourth postnatal week; therefore if it is regressive its goal must be the intrauterine state, for that was the preceding state of maximal narcissistic gratification. Weeping then, in addition to its homeostatic function of release of tension, represents a retreat to the wet and warm amniotic sac. The physical and chemical similarities of the amniotic and lacrimal fluids seem to support that supposition. There arises of course the critical objection that tears are not shed during the first four weeks of life, when their regressive function would be particularly necessary to meet the many new, painful stimuli. I have no answer and can only speculate that the long hours of sleep characteristic of that period afford sufficient regression until the exigencies of life have stimulated cerebration and the further development of the lacrimal glands. Weeping then becomes the response to a great variety of unpleasant excitations. It may be pathological when a decisive infantile trauma renders the patient hypersensitive to later narcissistic injuries.
The analysis of a young woman with excessive weeping as one of her presenting symptoms revealed that the discrepancy between her parents' unrealistic social and educational standards and her own sense of reality was a continual source of