Much of this material centers around a young boy who began treatment at eleven and continued through adolescence. At the same time the boy's mother was in analysis, presenting an unusual opportunity to study the interactions which served to perpetuate the psychopathology in each. The mother was excessively dependent upon the boy to fulfil her own narcissistic needs and to assuage feelings of guilt. The boy was bound to his mother by his pregenital needs, his fear of harming his mother by leaving her, and his guilt over gratification in being apart from her. The intensifications of id impulses during adolescence led again and again to infantile ties rather than to realization of the growing wish for freedom. These fixations became quite clear in the patients' transference reactions. Such ties between mother and child have serious pathological consequences; it is important to recognize and treat them early.