ABSTRACT
Vertigo due to attraction to the void, which is very common, assumes two forms. In the more active one, the patient says: ‘I have an overwhelming desire to throw myself into the void’; he may tell you, for instance, how he has to keep away from the edge of the balcony, for although he has no conscious desire to kill himself, he nevertheless has an urge to jump into the void. The second form is more passive, the patient saying: ‘I am irresistibly drawn to the void’, and he will also avoid getting close to windows or to the edge of a precipice, because everything seems unsteady and a whirlwind seems about to suck him up, not in order to imprison him as in suction-related vertigo, but to make him disappear.
