The author draws upon his extensive experience in the treatment of patients who have been arrested for indecent exposure. He considers the need to defy a proscriptive superego a decisive etiological factor. In therapy, passive resistance and the urge to fail are the common picture, giving rise to resentment in the countertransference which can confirm the patient's proscriptive superego projections. The therapist needs to be clear that his goal is to analyze, not change behavior. In this way, a proscriptive attitude toward the patient can be avoided.