This article considers the mad and depressive forms of hysteria as the result of a primary oedipal configuration weakened by sexual polymorphism. There is a combination of repression and splitting. The archaic underlies the mechanisms of hysteria and affects the psychoanalyst’s counter-transference in a specific way, calling for interpretation even though language is insufficient to represent the thing in question. Beyond the classical conception of a failure of repression that urgently calls for splitting, it is suggested that a dissociative potential is present in all repression by virtue of the distorted structure of the primary oedipal configuration. The case of a patient who became dissociated as a result of rape and a psychotic-inducing childhood and family (pre)history, illustrates the way in which countertransference is brought into play even in the formulation of interpretations.