A twenty-six-year-old man receiving psychotherapy developed aphthous ulcers, generalized tensing of the muscles, and urticaria after bringing up memories believed to relate to events of the first few weeks of his life. His mother had developed abscess of the breast which had necessitated abrupt weaning and separation from her. The infant had reacted with generalized urticaria which the author explains as an attempt to regain the lost eroticism of the skin. The symptoms in adulthood are explained as revivals of skin, muscle, and oral eroticism.

The contributions of the anal and phallic phases to the psychosomatic symptoms are inadequately discussed, and the contribution of the superego is not mentioned. The severity of the self-destructiveness of the symptoms in adulthood suggests a more complex origin than the simple wish fulfilment of the infant. Moreover, the most severe of the symptoms, the aphthous ulcers, did not apparently appear during the original incident in infancy.