Ernest Jones referred to the relation between true symbolism and other forms of indirect representation such as the metaphor. In this connection I wish to offer here a brief description of a special mechanism occurring in the analysis of a schizoid boy of fifteen and a half years of age. I hope to expand this account at some future date, and to go more fully into the various problems of the nature and function of symbolism with which it is obviously linked.3 In this note I am concerned only incidentally with these more general issues. My purpose is to describe the special mechanism observed, of the acting out of a metaphor.