A psychiatrist had been treating a 35-year-old man with a narcissistic personality and dysthymic disorder for 2 years. Given the brutality and deprivation of the patient’s childhood, the clinician was persistently puzzled by the patient’s remarkable psychological strengths. He possessed capacities for empathy, self-observation, and modulation of intense rage that were unusual, given his background. During a session the patient, in telling a childhood story, began, “When I was a little fella…” It struck the psychiatrist that the patient always said “little fella” when referring to himself as a boy, and that this was fairly distinctive phraseology. Almost all other patients will say, “When I was young/a kid/a girl (boy)/in school,” designate an age, etc. On inquiry about this, the patient immediately identified “The Andy Griffith Show” as the source. This revealed a secret identification with the characters of the TV show, and a model that said to a young boy, “There are other ways to be a man than what you see around you.” Making this long-standing covert identification fully conscious was transformative for the patient.