During an acute psychotic episode, a 33-yr-old, divorced white man cut out his tongue. He felt a great pressure to eliminate the organ of speech because he felt so guilty about a “wrong decision” in choosing his girlfriend over his ex-wife. There was other evidence of speech taking on a semimagical significance just prior to the tongue amputation. Among other things, it represented castration, substituted for suicide, & relieved probably unconscious homosexual impulses.