Two patients are discussed with reference to their attitudes toward gadgets which were strikingly similar. Gadgets appear in these cases to represent an object that enhanced secondary processes, thereby re-enforcing the integrative and synthetic

functions of the ego. There was nevertheless a frequently recurrent overcompensatory denial of the need for them. Preoccupation with the gadget enhanced repression and helped maintain a defensive equilibrium. The gadget was also discussed in terms of its time regulatory qualities in that it represented a postponement of gratification until a more appropriate time and thereby helped achieve control over dangerous aberrant id impulses.