In this report of an incomplete analysis of a woman patient suffering from anxiety hysteria with severe depersonalization phenomena, the author emphasizes the importance of the body image for the understanding of the origin of the depersonalization and for the outcome of the therapeutic process. A primal scene witnessed by the patient seemed at first to afford an explanation for her severe distortions of the body image. However, further investigation revealed that the Oedipal situation was merely a screen and a medium for the expression of oral and anal drives to destroy and devour the mother's body. On the basis of the findings in this analysis, depersonalization appears to represent a revival of the undifferentiated state, embodying both the element of the separation trauma and the emergence of the first external objects.