This is a well-documented account of the psychotherapy of a man with ulcerative colitis and psychological features commonly accompanying this condition, whose gastrointestinal dysfunction was related to the incorporation and threatened loss of a maternal image. A crisis occurred which was accompanied by classic Isakower phenomena and dreams of the renunciation of this incorporated figure, which the author feels were the 'equivalent of a weaning experience'. Following this there was a permanent remission of bowel symptomatology and a transition to a less narcissistic, more mature type of object relationship.