A study of children with temper tantrums who had been in child analytic treatment is reviewed. The recognition of the impact of depressive affect and an internalized, negative self-representation is seen as a contribution to the literature on the symptom of temper tantrums. Methodological and constructive issues pertaining to the genetic reconstruction, dynamic formulation, and causal attribution advanced in this study are considered and seen as relevant to studies involving psychoanalytically derived observations. The hypothesis is posited that the temper tantrums of early childhood are not only a form of affect discharge but also represent inchoate signals of acute distress, with the tantrums of older children seen as a persistence of this early signaling on a developmental line of expressive behavior.