a more "liberal" attitude toward sex, in order to "belong," i.e., to be accepted by her "peer group." After a few
experimental excursions into romance, none of which are consummated sexually, she finally plunges into an
affair—with a married man. She is able, to some extent, to control her guilt over the affair by the thought that she is
desperately in love.
But the religious beliefs she had absorbed in childhood are still operative, even though partially repressed. One
night, when she is returning home after a date with her lover, a host of long-evaded thoughts and long-denied fears
burst into her conscious awareness for one brief moment—and she faints on her parents' doorstep. When she
regains consciousness, the memory of that brief moment is swept away, and she finds herself in the midst of an
acute, "causeless" anxiety attack.
The two absolutes that have collided within her are: "I must not (have this affair)"—and "I am (and will continue
to)."
The clash is between a value-imperative, engaging her sense of personal worth, her self-esteem (or pretense at it)—
and her actions which contradict that imperative. Thus, she experiences a crisis of self-esteem.
- A man who has been married for ten years falls in love with another woman. For a long time, he has resisted
identifying his marital dissatisfaction, as well as his feeling for the other woman. But gradually the repression
breaks down and he finds himself day-dreaming about the other woman more and more frequently.
He does not think the issue out consciously; his thinking has been reserved for his work; in the conduct of his
personal life, he has acted under the guidance of his feelings. So he does not reach any reasoned decision; he
merely lets himself and the problem drift, in the hope that "somehow" a solution will come to him.
One night, accidental circumstances bring him and the other woman together; and he begins an affair with her. He
did not intend to begin an affair; his emotions made the decision for him. He feels guilty and represses the guilt and
continues to drift, evading the other woman's questions about their future; he is still waiting for the solution to
come from somewhere.
His wife decides to take a trip to visit her parents. As he stands at the airport, watching her plane depart, the thought
comes to him—and it is as much a desire as a thought—that if the plane crashed, he would be free and would have
no further problems.