Dr. B. Dattner states: “A colleague related to me that he lost his steel pencil which he had had for over two years, and which, on account of its superior quality, was highly prized by him. Analysis elicited the following facts: The day before he had received a very disagreeable letter from his brother-in-law, the concluding sentence of which read: ‘At present I have neither the desire nor the time to assist you in your carelessness and laziness.’ The effect connected with this letter was so powerful that the next day he promptly sacrificed the pencil which was a present from this brother-in-law in order not to be burdened with his favours.” Brill reports the following example: “A doctor took exception to the following statement in my book, ‘We never lose what we really want’ (_Psychanalysis, its Theories and Practical Application_, p. 214). His wife, who is very interested in psychologic subjects, read with him the chapter on “Psychopathology of Everyday Life”; they were both very much impressed with the novelty of the ideas, and so on, and were very willing to accept most of the statements. He could not, however, agree with the above-given statement because, as he said to his wife, ‘I surely did not wish to lose my knife.’ He referred to a valuable knife given to him by his wife, which he highly prized, the loss of which caused him much pain. “It did not take his wife very long to discover the solution for this loss in a manner to convince them both of the accuracy of my statement. When she presented him with this knife he was a bit loath to accept it. Although he considered himself quite emancipated, he nevertheless entertained some superstition about giving or accepting a knife as a gift, because it is said that a knife cuts friendship. He even remarked this to his wife, who only laughed at his superstition. He had the knife for years before it disappeared. “Analysis brought out the fact that the disappearance of the knife was directly connected with a period when there were violent quarrels between himself and his wife, which threatened to end in separation. They lived happily together until his step-daughter (it was his second marriage) came to live with them. His daughter was the cause of many misunderstandings, and it was at the height of these quarrels that he lost the knife. “The unconscious activity is very nicely shown in this symptomatic action. In spite of his apparent freedom from superstition, he still unconsciously believed that a donated knife may cut friendship between the persons concerned. The losing of it was simply an unconscious defence against losing his wife, and by sacrificing the knife he made the superstitious ban impotent.” In a lengthy discussion and with the aid of dream analysis[60] Otto Rank made clear the sacrificial tendency with its deep-reaching motivation. It must be said that just such symptomatic actions often give us access to the understanding of the intimate psychic life of the person.