We shall see that this is his way of protecting himself against temptation. He quarrels only with persons with whom he has pleasant relations and who play some role in his sexual fancies. That is also how he parts from his mother, for he usually leaves her after a bitter quarrel. This is also why his parents let him dwell among strangers, although they think a great deal of him. His letters are sufficiently irritating but easier to endure than the scenes he creates when at home. His attitude towards his father is worse. He is easily moved to anger when speaking of him. He makes copious use of vile terms when referring to him. Such expressions as “the old rascal,” the “miserable thief,” are customary with him when speaking of his father. He knows no reason why he should feel so bitter towards his father. That is, he gives a thousand reasons but all trivial and hardly relevant. The father brought him up badly; the father is responsible for his condition; the father is wealthy, nevertheless complains always that he has nothing; the father lives only for his mother and cares nothing for _him_. He wants to make himself independent and wants to get money from his father for that purpose. The very thought that his father may deny him the money makes him angry: “I shall go to him and kill him and shoot myself.” Such murder fancies are not infrequent about his father. How close the neurotic is to the criminal! Against his father he raises all sorts of complaints, equally unreasonable. One day he called on me to say that, having passed a sleepless night he has figured out at last the reason for his illness: the father has murdered his brother! The brother was incurably ill and a burden to his father. He knew it well and had decided to go home and confront his father with the truth, then demand his share of the inheritance. Even as a boy it was clear to him that the father had deliberately put his brother out of the way. The father always felt uncomfortable when the talk turned to the boy and always tried to avoid the subject.