Returning to the phobia for bells, in the light of all these facts, the patient’s belief that her mother’s death was her fault and the consequent self-reproach were obviously only a particular concrete example of a lifelong emotional tendency originating in the experiences of childhood to blame herself; and this tendency was the striving to express itself of the instinct of self-abasement (with the emotion of self-subjection) which, incorporated within “the self-regarding sentiment” (McDougall), was so intensely cultivated and had played so large a part in her life. Indeed this instinct had almost dominated her self-regarding sentiment and had given rise time and again to self-reproach for accidental happenings. It now specifically determined her attitude of mind toward the series of events which led up to the fatal climax and determined her judgment of self-condemnation and self-reproach. These last most probably received increased emotional force from the large number of roots in painful associations of antecedent experiences (particularly of childhood) in which the self-regarding sentiment, self-debasement, and self-reproaches were incorporated.[189] _Nevertheless the fear was of a particular concrete self-reproach._ The general tendency was of practical consequence only so far as it explained the particular point of view and might induce other self-reproaches. As a general summary of this study it would appear that we can postulate a larger setting to the phobia than the grief inspiring experiences attending her mother’s death. The unconscious complex included the belief that she was to blame and the sentiment of self-reproach, and the whole gave a fuller meaning to the ringing of bells in a tower. The fear besides being a recurring association was also a reaction to the subconsciously excited setting of a fancied truth or self-accusation. Although excited by towers and steeples the fear was really of self-reproach. Towers, steeples, and bells not only in a sense symbolized her mother’s death, but her own fancied fault. It was in this sense and for this reason that she dared not face such objects. The conscious and the unconscious formed a psychic whole.[190] Now in reaching these conclusions see how far we have traveled: Starting with an ostensible phobia for towers, we find it is more correctly one of ringing-of-bells, but without conscious association; then we reach a childhood’s tragedy; then a self-reproach on religious grounds; then a belief in a fault of childhood’s behavior culminating in a lifelong self-reproach—the causal factor and psychologically the true object of the phobia: and between this last self-reproach and the phobia no conscious association.