more demanding than his present position, which offers him security and protection for his mediocrity. He evades
and represses this fact.
Then, one day, he is informed that he is to be given a major promotion. He receives the news with apparent
gratitude and delight. But that evening he begins to complain of queer sensations in his head and a painful tightness
in his chest. During the night, he awakens in a state of violent anxiety.
In the days that follow, he begins to express worry and concern about his children's school grades, then he begins to
moan that the house is under-insured, finally he begins to cry that he is going insane. But the issue of his promotion
does not enter his conscious mind.
What triggered his anxiety? It was the collision of two absolutes: "I must know what to do" (meaning: I must know
how to handle the responsibilities of my new position)—and "I don't (and can't)." The conflict is not conscious; it is
repressed; but it is real and devastating, nonetheless. The effect of the conflict is to demolish the man's pretense at
control over his life, and thus to precipitate his anxiety.
In this case, the conflict is brought about by an outside event: the news of the promotion. But the foundation for
such a conflict, and for many other similar conflicts, is in the man's psycho-epistemological policies.
Observe the nature of the conflict: it is a clash between a value-imperative, engaging the man's sense of personal
worth, his self-esteem (or pretense at it)—and a failure or flaw or inadequacy that the man experiences as a breach
of that imperative. Thus, he experiences a crisis of self-esteem.
- A young woman is raised in a severely religious home where, from her earliest days, she is taught that she is
sinful by nature. She is urged to search her conscience each night for moral infractions of which she might have
been guilty during the day. In her upbringing, particular stress is placed by her mother on the inviolate sacredness
of family life and the depravity of sex outside of marriage.
The girl does not question or challenge her parents' teachings; it is not her policy to think out moral issues for
herself.
However, as she grows older, she discovers that her contemporaries do not share her parents' views—and, in
college, she affects