His father had died two years before, from arteriosclerosis, and his main complaint had been dizziness, weakness of the legs and depression. To any one but the patient, the psychological connection between his illness and his father’s illness would have been obvious. He, too, saw some connection between the two, only he placed upon that fact a more sinister construction. The heredity bogey was terrifying him. His father had bequeathed his illness to him, and he was to die as his father had died.
It came out in the course of the analysis that he had been from infancy his father’s constant companion, working for him till he was over forty years of age. Although he had always been fond of women, he had never thought of marrying until his father died. After reciting the usual arguments of the average bachelor directed against matrimony, he confessed that he had never had the courage to bring to his home any young woman he liked and who might have become his wife. Fear of his father’s sarcastic remarks set to nought any plans he might have made for a home of his own.
After his father’s death, he went half-heartedly into various business ventures of which his father would have disapproved and he naturally lost his investment. Every time he met with a reverse, he would be tortured by remorse. “This is my father’s money which I have been squandering.” “My father would be furious if he knew what I have done.”
He would then dream that his father stalked past him, cold, indifferent, stern, and he “knew” his father had “come back” to show him his resentment.
The superficial symptoms of the patient’s trouble were easily removed when he acquired enough insight to realize that he had been imitating all of his father’s attitudes and repressing his own ego.
Physical exercise soon restored to his legs the steadiness which they had lost while the patient, imitating his father’s helplessness, would sit in his father’s chair day after day, never taking a walk. A more critical attitude of mind toward the father whom he worshipped, removed gradually the sense of worthlessness which had almost lead him to suicide.
Suicide to him was the road that led back to his father, upon whom he wished to shift his responsibilities, and for whom he wished to work (as a younger man), etc.
The case was much more complicated but the few details of it which I have presented are sufficient to show the close connection which existed between the patient’s most frequent dream and his imaginary neurotic goal.
A homosexual patient always dreamt of her stepmother whom her father married when she, the patient, was only twelve years of age. That marriage was the culmination of a complicated family tragedy, double divorce, unsavoury publicity, bitterness and hostility, puritanical gossip about sex, passion, etc., which made on the child an indelible impression.
She felt obscurely then that relations between sexes were something unutterably filthy and while she liked a few boys in her flapper days, she could not master a feeling of disgust whenever their attitude reminded her of the “nasty” things which had wrecked her family.