A psychotic patient developed a philosophic, delusional system in his adolescence. At times, paranoiac and depressed, he criticized and tried to change the world around him. Eventually, in an attempt to resolve difficulties by reality testing and to eliminate his almost constant immobility, he utilized a delusional body ego schema as a referential system in order to cope with the outside world. All the early mechanisms of defense were well delineated and utilized in what the patient called his 'classic work', Theory of Egotism as a Source of Disease, in an attempt at restitution.