Psychosomatic study of patients with leukemia and lymphoma led to observations of the mode of adjustment to loss of a significant person in the early life of these patients. The majority of the adult patients had adapted to the early losses with processes differing in many respects from the usually described mechanisms of mourning or melancholia or hypochondriasis. The mechanisms described are by no means unique for persons who develop leukemia or lymphoma but are frequently used means of adjusting to object loss. The processes of adaptation involve two simultaneous phases. In the first phase the individual preserves his own personality, “and also” assumes the role of the lost object. In the second phase the individual uses someone in the environment designated as a vicarious object. This vicarious figure has usually suffered the same object loss. Both phases of the adjustment constitute what may be called “proxy mechanisms.” The adjustment, then, comprises an intrapersonal first phase where the “and also” quality pertains and an interpersonal second phase where “the vicarious object” is involved. These mechanisms of adjustment to object loss have been used successfully by many of the patients on a general medical service. In the setting of dissolution of such mechanisms these patients have developed manifest somatic disease.