Depressive crises may drive patients into psychotherapy, but they can also supervene in the course of treatment of patients with severe personality disorders. In such contingencies, pharmacotherapy may be helpful and should never be neglected; however, mastery of the affective crisis is only preparation for dealing psychotherapeutically with its cause. This dynamic usually involves collapse of illusions, either about the perfection of another or about the absence of personal limitations. Psychoanalysis proper is required to eliminate such vulnerabilities and to deal with the patient's defenses against archaic feeling states. The recurrence of these feeling states in the transference may, however, rupture the therapeutic bond.