This article utilizes the work of Melanie Klein to examine the role of projective identification in the bulimic symptom of binging and self-induced vomiting. It is hypothesized that a severe disturbance in early development, when splitting and projective identification dominate, contributes to the evolution of this symptom. Such an early disturbance skews all later development and is manifested in a variety of conditions, one of which is bulimia. To examine this symptom, Klein's metaphor of the infant and the breast is used. Clinical material illustrates a constellation of phantasies that underlie general and specific patterns of beliefs and behaviors in relation to food and to internal and external objects.