When A was introduced to a stranger, he was genial, talkative, and anxious to impress. When he was aware of opposition in his environment, he overreacted at once, hurling a vast repertory of jibes and flouts and sneers at the offender. This gives a clue to an important element in his makeup which will come out very distinctly in subsequent cases, namely, a strong latent homosexual trend. When the individual is not able to achieve full heterosexual adjustment, the sexual libido tends to work itself out in more primitive ways, and one of the phases of emotional development is the homosexual epoch. Earlier, however, than the adolescent homosexual period is the phase connected with the suppression of auto-erotic activities. The child characteristically uses its nutritional object (nurse-mother) for the sake of stimulating his own erogenous zones as much as possible. This “incestuous” drive is curbed, and the child is denied the pleasure of promiscuously fingering others, and of manually stimulating his own genitalia. Though the nurse or mother, who is the target of the desires of the child, also administers the prohibitions, the sanction which lurks most prominently in the background is the strength of the father. Reduced to its ultimate expression, this sanction is the threat of depriving the child of his much-valued organs unless he observes the “hands off” prohibition. The “normal” development is for the hostile protest at authoritarian interference to subside, and for the child to copy the idealized father. The repression of hostilities and the identification with the father do not take place instantly. Identification is not achieved without a phase in which the child plays a femininely passive rôle toward the father, and this is the passively homosexual reaction which may for one reason or another be unusually strong. A’s fantasies of his father’s beautiful skin are common screen fantasies for more primitive drives. A’s tendency to overreact to the stranger who is merely polite, and to interpret the stranger’s interest as a “personal” one, is characteristic of the one in whom this passive “winning” rôle is of some importance. He tries to create an overpersonal relationship in those somewhat formal situations where ordinary conversational requirements are such as to force conventional compliments.