A case is reported of a patient who adopted active homosexuality as an elaborate defense against burgeoning feminine drives. As the feminine strivings were stimulated, pressing toward the surface, the defense system collapsed and there was a suicide attempt. The author supports Bychowski's view that in homosexuals 'conflicting identifications with various parental images are followed, each time they are made, by their dethronement. This weakens the ego, since considerable countercathexis must be used to maintain these various identifications which have become not only unconscious but dissociated from each other and the conscious ego as well.'