By analyzing the patient's spoken words, it can be demonstrated that his earliest mechanisms of defense are also his earliest mechanisms for attaining his love objects. They persist throughout life and are indispensable for the faculty of symbolization. They determine the normal, neurotic, or psychotic qualities of the personality. The author's discussion of magic-animistic concepts of the hand, the voice, words, space, and time is convincing, but some of her concepts are unclear, perhaps because she offers no clinical examples.