In a short but dramatic case report of a man suffering from renal transplant rejection, the author establishes temporal correlations between the emergence of predictable conflict and the somatic response to that conflict. In the case cited, the rejection of the kidney appeared to begin following the death of one of the patient's friends whom he had perceived as a father replacement. This trauma was followed on the day of admission by another in which the mother of his godchild unexpectedly died and the patient identified with the godchild abandoned by the parent. Both of these traumata rekindled the patient's unconscious unresolved conflicts related to the loss of his father at an early age, conflicts that involved idealization and bitterness at the loss of the idealized object.