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A patient who, for many years, had been expiating the death of his father by means of a severe neurosis, related the following incident connected with the demise of that parent.
His parents were chatting together, when, suddenly, the father gasped and swooned. The mother rushed into the next room where the patient was sleeping, aroused him, pulled him to his feet, and cried 'Jake, father is dying! Run for a doctor!' Whereupon the patient seemed dazed and confused and stood as though rooted to the spot. Only after the mother had frantically repeated the urgent request did he execute it, but in vain.
A few days after the funeral the mother remarked: 'Jake, when I asked you to get help for father you acted as if you did not want to go'. Years later, in the patient's analysis, it was clearly proven that the mother's instinctive interpretation of her son's conduct was correct. Interestingly enough, the patient had been vaguely troubled for many years by his mother's remark, without being able to account for its strange effect upon him.