Three prepubertal cases of cryptorchism were presented. The complementary effects of psychotherapy, physical correction of the genital defect (two operative, one spontaneous), and treatment of the parents, especially the mother, were explored. On the basis of the clinical data the following conclusions were reached:

1Cryptorchism is not a primary pathogenic factor. The particular way in which the genital defect is experienced by the parents, particularly the mother, accounts for the child's preoccupation with the testes. The perpetrator of the body damage is in the child's mind identified with the mother. Her castrating possessiveness and the passive aloofness of the father both constitute a matrix of family interaction in which cryptorchism gives rise to typical symptoms despite the fact that the three cases belong to heterogeneous nosological categories.