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Unlike most investigations which retrospectively assess the role of the family in the development of psychosis, the data of this study were gathered during the childhoods of subjects who later became psychotic. (Of course the staff did not know that the material would be used later for a study of the psychoses.) The family environments of the prepsychotics differed radically from the milieu of the nonpsychotic controls. 'The combination of a smothering mother with either a passive father or an absent father would seem to be especially conducive to psychosis in the son.' This is termed the 'silver cord syndrome'. These mothers were commanding figures who overawed and controlled both sons and husbands. The domination of the son was accomplished under a cloak of solicitous love. The son's symbiotic dependence on mother was enjoined and other object relations restricted. The silver cord syndrome was not prominent in the backgrounds of the criminals and alcoholics studied. The precriminal background tended to be characterized by a rejecting, neglecting mother and an aggressive father. The alcoholics appear to have been reared by alternating rather than smothering mothers.