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Angyal described the case of a man with a domineering father who showed extreme swings of mood in relation to his son. At times, he was affectionate, played with the child, and told him interesting and imaginative stories. At other times he showed violent outbursts of rage and would beat his son so badly that the child thought he would be killed. The boy had numerous fantasies, including one in which his father was killed by a cunning bandit who came to the house cleverly disguised as the father. As Angyal put it, the fantasy dramatized the childs confusion as to whether he was living in a loving house or in a cruel, alien world that merely masqueraded as pleasant. The fantasy was aimed at dispelling his confusion about the father, whose behaviour made him both God and devil. But this daydream ,implying the murder and loss of the underlying good father,was unacceptable to the boy and failed to solve his doubts. He began to behave compulsively, such as making sure when out walking to step only on stones and never to walk on the bare earth a magical hope of resolving his confusion. Once as he walked in the backyard he ran out of stones to step on and suddenly stood stuck still on the last stone between the yard and his rear steps. He stayed there for an hour until finally his father came and picked him up, freeing him from his immobility. Once the boy overheard his father saying I live only for the family only to hear his grandfather say: No, you only live for yourself! All of these seeming contradictions made the boy grow into a man endlessly shifting back and forth between positions, unable to take a stand except on irrelevant and unimportant issues in daily life. | 
