Chapman has described the nemesis concept as the patient's conviction that he is doomed to repeat the adverse pattern of another, usually a parent. The nemesis fear is rooted in his overwhelming guilt over the parent's death or catastrophic illness when he was a child. It appears as phobic, anxious, obsessive, or psychosomatic symptomatology. The therapeutic task is to trace the origins of the nemesis conviction and deal with the resolution of the patient's guilt.