Five female amphetamine abusers were found to manifest an anacliticdepressive syndrome. This syndrome seems to evolve not solely from deep failures of nurturance during the early symbiotic phase of development. Real failures and inadequacies of parenting and real object losses in latency and early adolescence were significant contributors to the ultimate regression. If the young person has only inadequate and inconstant real objects to internalize, the internalized objects fail to provide the necessary base for development of mature capacities of object relatedness, independence, and self-sufficiency.