Thus the painful sphere grew by apposition first because every new pathogenically affecting theme occupied a new region of the legs, second, every one of the impressionable scenes left a trace because it produced a lasting, always more cumulative, “occupation” of the different functions of the legs, thus connecting these functions with the sensations of pain. There was unmistakably, however, still a third mechanism which furthered the production of astasia-abasia. When the patient finished the recitation of a whole series of events with the plaint that she then perceived pain in “standing alone,” and when in another series referring to the unfortunate attempt of bringing about new conditions in the family she was not tired of repeating that the painful in that was the feeling of her helplessness, the sensation that she “could make no headway,” I had to admit that her reflections influenced the formation of the abasia, and had to assume that she directly sought a symbolic expression for her painfully accentuated thoughts and had found it in the aggravation of her pains. That somatic symptoms of hysteria could originate through such symbolization we have already asserted in our Preliminary Communication, and in the epicrisis to this history. I will give some examples of conclusive evidence. In Miss Elisabeth v. R. the psychic mechanism of the symbolization was not in the foreground, it had not produced the abasia, but everything pointed to the fact that the already existing abasia had in this way undergone a considerable reinforcement. Accordingly this abasia as I met it in the stage of development was not only to be compared to a psychically associative paralysis of function but also to a symbolic paralysis of function.