In this study the psychiatrist has interviewed 150 gastro-intestinal patients to determine their basic motives in visiting the physician and what attitudes or emotional problems they had which would be apt to influence their cooperation in treatment. I have been moved to do this by the current neglect of these matters, a neglect which is augmented by the lack of objective data or methods of approach. In addition, I have felt that these simpler psychiatric problems might offer clinical material of easier access and of greater interest to the medical student than are ordinarily used. Perhaps we can best get on common ground by looking over an actual problem: Lena, a well nourished, healthy looking Italian woman, aged 33, sought help for abdominal discomfort—accumulation of food, a pinched feeling, headaches, and anorexia at times. In the department of medicine she told of having fallen on her side five years before,