The case of a female patient with factitious anemia through self-bloodletting, has been the occasion for investigating the psychopathology of self-mutilation, malingering and self-bloodletting. It can be assumed that hospital admission and medical interest may provide nurses in particular with a compensation for a pathological need of attention based on a hysterical-degenerative constitution on one hand, and a normal need for human contact their lack of sympathetical feelings prevents them from satisfying, on the other. A combination of social-psychiatric guidance and psychotherapy sets out to lessen the self-destructiveness, to control the aggressiveness and to establish a better adapted social behaviour.