ABSTRACT
The preferred data for a psychoanalyst from which he seeks to derive insights that may contain the potential for further generalisation are his case histories. And the case history I am going to use in trying to understand the uses of a ritual is my own. My understanding of ritual, then, is inextricable from my own experiential background which I will try to articulate although I am acutely aware that all such articulations are fated to remain incomplete.
