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A forty-year-old man, subject since childhood to fits of uncontrollable destructiveness, was almost always in a good mood in spite of living a miserable life. He behaved as if painful situations were unimportant and reacted only to pleasant perceptions. Hypercathexis of pleasant or innocuous stimuli served as countercathexis to painful ones. His constant good mood protected him from depression and aggressiveness; it served in the same manner as screen memories do. His relationship to his parents determined his later difficult relationship to people and to reality, and his whole life was dedicated to proving that 'I am not like my father. Mother loves me.'
The most important determinant of the patient's neurosis was the struggle with the introjected father image. His mother had complained to him about his father, so he attempted to deny that he had within him the introjected father. When, in his latency period, this denial began to fail, the patient began to imitate his father's behavior by his aggressive outbursts. He also began to fear that he had a tapeworm which kept him from growing tall. His hatred was deflected from others onto his father and the introjection helped him to avoid an object relationship to the father. He could not reveal his identification with the father because he would thus lose mother's love. His distorted moods resulted from his struggle to deny the internalized object. Two other patients, who complained of boredom, had a similar problem.