A series of fantasies during three successive menstrual cycles was paralleled by a change from anxiety to depression. Working through of original ideas of persecution by internal objects in the first menstrual period led to capacity for object relationship (falling in love) at the time of the third period, when the patient was 'in sympathy with her object while not feeling spellbound or threatened by its power'. Menstruation not only activates taboos and anxieties; it also reassures the woman that she is fertile.