He is the youngest of four children. The next older member was a brother who was killed when L was eight and the brother was seventeen. Since L was so much younger than the other children, he was at first petted and spoiled. He slept around with all the members of the family, but mostly with his mother. A cousin of his own age with whom he visited provided the immediate point of departure for much exaggerated sexual fantasy. The cousin initiated him into various sexual practices when L was seven. He began very early to masturbate, and the habit stayed with him as a problem until he was through college. A certain masochistic element appeared when he got erections at an early age upon being spanked by a girl playmate. He was sexually stimulated when attending to the natural wants of small children. L developed his guilty fantasies about his sinful impulses until he began to fear that grave retribution would be visited upon him or his family on account of his secret crimes. It was at this time that his brother, who was his favorite in the family next to the mother, was killed while out on a boyish escapade. L was profoundly stirred by this. His forebodings of disaster seemed to have direct confirmation, and he soon developed whole congeries of compulsive rituals. When L went to the bathtub, he felt that something terrible would happen to his family, and especially to his mother, unless he plunged his head under water and held it there just as long as he had the breath. He became afraid of taking a bath because of this compulsive drive to duck his head under the water. Often in the bathroom he had the same feeling that disaster could be prevented only if he succeeded in drinking all the water that gushed out of a faucet. At night he would be seized by the sudden conviction that he must bury his face in the pillow and keep it there just as long as he possibly could without suffocating. Once he swallowed a pin after long inner debate over the efficacy of this measure. Several times he hung over the edge of the roof on top of the house until he barely had strength enough to swing back to safety on top of the porch. He felt that he could permit no one to pass him on the street. Later he thought he must outstare people, and calculated that if he kept staring until seven out of ten people dropped their eyes, that all would be well.