The author postulates that primitive, oral destructive-dependent impulses toward a mother figure were important in the dynamics of Schreber's psychosis, and on this assumption reanalyzes Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. In addition to Schreber's Oedipal conflict and his unconscious homosexual love for his father, the most pathogenic of his conflicts dealt with his preoedipal relationship with his mother. Disguised and symbolic representations of his mother, and pregenital impulses toward her, are prominent in the case. The major defense Schreber employed against such impulses was projection—he accused God of 'needful, greedy, potentially destructive oral longings for Schreber'. His delusion of being unmanned may be interpreted as the expression of his wish to regain that most primitive and undifferentiated relationship of a child to his mother—that experienced by the foetus. Although Schreber's father was an important figure in his life, White contends that his mother was the central figure in the most pathogenic of Schreber's conflicts.