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Samuel, a seven-and-a-half-year-old boy, was referred to me for therapy because he had many fears and an especially acute phobic reaction to safety movies showing accidents. One time he vomited; another time he ran out of the room shouting, “No, no.”
Samuel was the elder of two siblings, the younger being a girl two years his junior, Heidi. The parents had been married seven years before Samuel was born. Both parents in the course of their lives manifested rather marked personality difficulties.
The father, a machinist, was, like Samuel, the elder of two siblings. He came of a poverty-stricken immigrant family, as a result of which he blamed all his troubles on the economic system. Although for the most part politically inactive, especially since the children came, he did belong to a small left-wing splinter group.
One odd incident which occurred several years after Samuel started treatment illustrates the kind of man his father was. The family was then living in a middle-class housing development in the Bronx, where many of the residents had cars, but he did not. Outwardly he did not express any resentment of this, but he discovered that because of the shortage of parking space one crosswalk which was supposed to be reserved for pedestrians was always blocked by some car which had parked there illegally. Thereupon he appointed himself a committee of one to correct this situation (it probably would have been easier to correct it if he had notified the authorities directly). He had gummed stickers printed at his own expense saying: “Parked illegally; move your car.” Stealthily, at night, he