Three patients are described who were capable of superficial social adjustment but feared surrender to serious object relationship; they would withdraw and become inertly self-absorbed when the prospect of such a relationship appeared. On the other hand they also feared, during the inert phase, surrender to the internal object which combined an ideal self and ideal mother. To avoid the internal surrender they would institute counterphobic flight away from the internal object and back toward social relationships. All three patients had suffered sudden loss of the mother in infancy followed by good care from surrogates who treated them well but without understanding their reaction to object loss. The author concludes that reconstruction of this specific disturbance