The author describes three patients with chronic resistance manifested by silence. In each a crucial distortion in ego and superego development with distorted self-representations was demonstrated. Their failure to distinguish between word and action required silence as a defensive maneuver; silence was also employed whenever speech threatened their distorted but protective self-representation.

In a twenty-six-year-old woman who was unable to form a lasting relationship with a man, silence during analysis was a distance-effecting device which lessened the tension from her poorly integrated sadistic impulses and the fears of being similarly victimized. At times, when associated with her homosexual fantasy of crawling into the vagina of an admired acquaintance, her silence was a 'contented' one and expressed the archaic wish for the passive provision of satisfaction enjoyed in her preverbal period. At other times, her silence controlled