A twenty-year-old banker's son, from a large city in Hungary, suddenly grew
sick two years ago, shortly after his father had suffered an attack of
apoplexy and paralysis of the right side. He is spiritless, restless, not
able to work, cannot use his right arm to write, is powerless to put his
attention on anything, sleeps badly, etc. No treatment has any helpful
effect. He is advised to seek distraction in Paris, but this, too, is of no
avail. Then, after months of torture, he came to Zurich to Dr. Jung, who
subjected him to analysis. At the second visit the patient behaved extremely
mysteriously; he was much disturbed and appeared to be under the influence
of an anxious dream, which he had dreamt that night. It required some effort
to induce him to tell this dream, and it was only after he had convinced
himself that no one could listen in the hall, that this story, not without
emotion, came out.
"I see in a vault a coffin in which my father lies, and I beside him; in
vain I attempt to remove the lid, and in my horrible fear I awake."
Some days were employed with the analysis of this dream. The explanation of
it is: he has a very strong father-complex. From childhood up he has always
been with his father, he has assumed the role of his father's wife, has
cared for him, lived for him. He often reproached his mother for not making
enough of the father, for not always cooking his favorite dish, for
sometimes contradicting him, etc. He was always around with his father,
worked at his office, served him in all sorts of ways, and anticipated all
his wishes. Now, when the father suddenly became an invalid, the conflict
arose. He identifies himself with the father. His father's invalidism
becomes his own, he cannot think any more, he cannot write any more, and he
sees death approaching. In the dream he is apparently dead, but his youth,
his strength refuses to die, and this is translated in his attempts to get
out of the coffin, which explains the fear.
The explanation brings relaxation. After some days, during which the
patient communicates his secret thoughts in detail, he feels very much
better, his heavy burden has been rolled away, and he cannot find words
enough to express his thanks to the doctor. The latter points out to him
that however natural this feeling of thankfulness may be, it is partly a
symptom of the cure at his hands. He shows the patient how the latter, who
had seen through the analysis that his love for his father has been
exaggerated and morbid, had been able to control this, and how he now
transfers to him, the assisting physician, the need for love, freed from
suffering along the way of sublimated homo-sexuality. He impresses upon him
that he must now learn to moderate the sympathy, which he expresses too
feelingly, and that he must not desire to see another father in the doctor,
but simply a friend, who is teaching him to stand on his own feet and to
become an independent man. After a few more weeks the young man was entirely
cured of his neurosis, freed from his exaggerations and returned home a well
man.