Seven girls and one boy hospitalized for treatment of severe paralytic sequelae of poliomyelitis were psychoanalytically studied and treated for eighteen months. The eight case reports are presented. General and theoretical psychiatric and psychoanalytic considerations, repeatedly utilizing the clinical data, are then developed. Of particular interest is the frequent demonstration of three interacting sets of psychopathological determinants: 1, the child's predisposition, including psychosexual phase vulnerability; 2, parents' psychopathology; and 3, severe stresses directly attributable to the crippling,—for example, frustration of need for motility and disturbances of body image. This is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the psychic problems of the physically handicapped.