In this article the author takes up the economic question of masochism. In 1924, revisiting the formulation of the pleasure principle and its relations to the death drive, Freud distinguishes between several forms of masochism : feminine, erogenous and moral. Rosenberg points out that the pleasure principle encompasses masochistic pleasure and that the erogenous masochistic core enables the baby to tolerate primary distress. This postponement, which makes hallucinatory wish-fulfilment and the constitution of the individual's fantasy life possible, also depends on the response of the object, the guarantor of drive fusion (Green, 1993). Drawing on the case of a young woman with eating disorders and somatization, the author attempts to establish links between the various forms of masochism at work and her economic functioning, between hysteria and the borderline state. In the transference she rediscovers the pre-eminence of the role of the object, promoting an objectalizing function.