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Four patients who have had gross psychiatric disturbances apparently precipitated by the anticipation of fatherhood are described. The timing of their emotional disturbances and their specific symptoms appear to have been related to major unresolved conflicts and developmental difficulties. The author notes that men without overt psychiatric symptoms preceding their wives' pregnancy also seem to experience considerable lability and unsettled feelings during the pregnancy and following the birth of the baby. These men demonstrate regressive pulls with conflictual themes similar to those described for more disturbed individuals, although their overt symptoms may be less intense, more transient, and more responsive to supportive intervention. Correlating his clinical observations with extensive psychoanalytic observations of pregnant women and new mothers, the author concludes that men experience a psychological crisis paralleling that seen in women, characterized by intensification of current conflicts, emergence of unsettled conflicts from the past, and a loosening of partial or inadequate solutions to conflict. He suggests that these normative events are a developmental crisis which provide opportunities for maturation and new emotional growth. The article includes a selective forty-four item bibliography.