A psychotic woman suffering from congenital blindness began after marriage to suffer from nervous crises and compulsive movements (tics and mannerisms). The patient had been brought up by cruel nurses and had developed a sadistic mother image. This later became fused with a raping father image. These images, aggravated by the blindness which produced 'poor control of reality', resulted in much paranoid anxiety, auditory hallucinations, and rigid and severe obsessive mechanisms. The defenses were in some ways determined by the disturbance in her body image due to her blindness. The case evolved into a paranoid syndrome which permitted the analyst to clarify the unconscious meaning of the 'influencing machine' for the patient. The case is of particular interest because it is one of the first reported cases of analytic work with a congenitally blind patient.