An elderly gentleman awakens one morning and thinks there are holes all over his body.
Charley, a man of eighty, awoke one morning and felt depressed. He found it emotionally difficult to get out of bed. When he finally forced himself to get up, he felt queasy in his stomach. At eighty, he was still a working man and although he had never before missed a day of work, he nevertheless decided he just couldn’t make it now.
Once out of bed, it suddenly occurred to him that he felt he had holes all over his body—holes that you could see through. This scared him because he felt that if someone had holes in his body, he would die. His worry was shared by his seventy-five-year-old, common-law wife whom he had lived with since his previous wife had died about five years earlier.
A few days later, as the depressive feelings and the holes symptom persisted, Charley also found he was impotent. In addition, despite the fact that he and his wife were accustomed to a pretty active sexual life (age notwithstanding), he said he now had no sexual interest whatsoever.
The entire emotional picture of what he called “the blues,” including his delusion of holes in his body, his impotence, and his queasy stomach, developed into a full-blown depression. When asked about the holes, he said, “You can see through the holes. They’re all over my body.”
Based upon our symptom code of one (the wish), two (the anger), and three (the who), we would guess that Charley:
1. had his wish blocked;
2. got angry about it; and,
3. didn’t realize he was angry at someone in particular—a who.
Charley reported that he had two sons. The older one, age fifty, was a highly successful attorney, and the younger one, age forty-three, was a struggling actor. As it turned out, this man had called his older son because, after a conversation with the younger one, the father realized that this younger son needed a loan. The father asked his successful attorney son for this loan which he, the father, fully intended to repay. The older son was in a meeting and although he took his father’s call, he dismissed the call and, apparently, abruptly ended the conversation.
It was the very next day that our elderly gentleman awoke with his feelings of depression and holes.
It is true that the real problem here was Charley’s holes symptom and the issues of his sudden-onset depression. Yet, there was more to this eighty-year-old man’s life than met the eye. He said that he had never mentioned what he was going to say to anyone before, but that now he had to get it off his chest. He related that throughout all of his life, from time to time, women would tell him that he was attractive and that they were attracted to him. Also from time to time, he would indulge in extramarital affairs especially since his wife had been ill for many years before she died. Even though he cared for her in all ways, he nevertheless couldn’t remain celibate and therefore didn’t resist sexual temptations.
But that was incidental. The real story was about a woman that worked as a secretary in the office of the firm where Charley was employed for the past forty years in the needle trades industry. She, too, had been employed at her job for almost twenty years. She was eight years his senior and in all the time they worked together, he had a huge crush on her. He explained to me that he loved her but that she was married and would never contemplate any kind of extramarital affair. So instead, he befriended her and, in fact, they actually became very good friends. He said she knew he loved her but disregarded it and never gave him any reason to feel that she was flirting with him or anything like that.
After his wife died, Charley met the woman with whom he had shared his life for the most recent five years of his life. He loved this woman and, for the second time, he again said that they had a good sexual relationship and were good companions together. Yet, he carried a longing for the woman he worked with. He explained that for the past year, she, who at this point was approaching ninety years of age, had become ill and was bedridden. Her husband had died some years earlier, but she still did not agree to have any contact other than one of friendship with our elderly gentleman. However, because she was ill and because she had no children, she was really alone. And this was his chance to do something for her, not only because he felt it would endear him to her more but also because he really wanted to help her. So he would shop and cook for her and, in the early evening, would sit by her bedside before returning home. According to him, his common-law wife never had a clue about this alternative life of his. And he would unfailingly be home by about 7:30 each evening in time for supper.
Thus, Charley would spend about one hour a day, Mondays through Fridays at the bedside of this coworker for whom he pined. On the weekends, he would steal away for an hour or so and do the same thing—shop for her and sit with her. The heartbreak, however, was in his request to hug and kiss her, which he always requested and which she invariably refused. So, he settled for simply talking and just being with her. But given his experience with other women in his life, he couldn’t really understand the rejection.
With respect to his sense of pride, with the fact of his stellar work ethic as well as the esteem in which he was held at work, with respect to his joy in his sons, as well as the fact that his common-law wife loved him (as he loved her), all of it comprised a catalogue of good things that counteracted his disappointment based upon the yearning he had for the other woman, and the deprivation (as well as rejection) he felt about it.
But then something happened that did, in fact, depress him and that in turn generated a whole host of psychological/emotional symptoms, not the least of which was his impotence, and of course, his depression and sense that there were holes all over his body. During this period, Charley was even unable to visit with his woman friend, although he generated enough energy to arrange for a neighbor of hers to look in on her.
The “something” that happened to Charley to cause such an array of symptoms seemed most likely to have been directly related to the phone call he made to his older son and the effect it had on him.
Charley was slowed down by his depression. He lost his appetite and his sleeping was disturbed. He would sleep restlessly and awaken during the night always feeling badly. More or less, he lost interest in everything around him. He would also obsess about the holes in his body and would repeat the word “hole” or “holes” many times. He would look down at his stomach, look up at his wife, and simply say, “Holes.” His wife reported he never again mentioned his older son, but brooded about the younger one.
The symptom code was applied in the following way:
One: The wish Charley had to help his younger son was thwarted and he was not able to face the humiliation he felt about the phone call with his older son. His wish was an indirect one because he couldn’t face either son. It was a wish to avoid both of them. Because of the avoidant nature of the wish, his symptom produced an increase in tension.
Two: Being summarily dismissed by his older son humiliated him, and this humiliation disguised his anger at this older son. Thus, he could only feel the humiliation but not the anger. He suppressed the anger.
Three: The depression culprit here, of course, was the older, successful lawyer son. He was clearly the who.
It became obvious that the anger Charley suppressed was originally directed toward his older son. In addition to making him angry, the humiliation he felt at being summarily dismissed by this son joined forces with the rejection he was feeling from his secret, wished-for woman. Together, these circumstances made him feel inferior, inadequate, small, unworthy, rejected, and not whole.
And so, the key to the holes symptom begins to reveal itself.
The point is that the holes symptom is a disguise about the original wish. And what was his original wish? Well, apparently his original wish was for his older son to grant him a loan so that he could support his needy younger son, and then later repay the loan. As such, a successful realization of this wish would make our elderly gentleman feel rather good, in contrast to feeling depressed and bad. It would make him feel adequate, not inadequate or impotent, and, it would make him feel “whole”—and not with “holes.”
Yes, the word play is what happened. Charley wanted to be “whole”—complete—successfully helping his younger son. But his older son made him feel “unwhole” so he began to see “holes” in his body. This substitution of “hole” for “whole” represented his symptom of unwholeness or depression, but underneath it all, and originally, the entire problem was that his wish was always to be adequate or “whole.”
Because of the unfortunate incident with his older son, in which he was humiliated, he wound up feeling quite inadequate, or holey. The holes meant inadequacy. And so his wish was transformed into an avoidant one to not see his sons.
Thus, being depressed, feeling impotent or inadequate, and seeing holes in his body related to his suppressed anger toward a who—his older son. A direct result of feeling humiliated by this son created a situation whereby this elderly gentleman could not face his anger and so he suppressed or repressed it. What resulted was a body delusion of holes—a symbol of unwholeness.
Finally, Point Four of the symptom code, the to do, or the in front of the line activity, involved a request to hold a joint meeting between father and son. The meeting was held and his son apologized, explaining that he was at a meeting and couldn’t talk, and didn’t even realize that he ended the conversation with his father so abruptly. The explanation was accepted and Charley’s anger quickly dissolved.
The one, two, three of symptom cure required knowing:
1. What the wish was;
2. That Charley was angry; and,
3. That he was angry at a who—his older son.
Calm was restored to this family. Charley gladly got his loan, and in short order all of his symptoms disappeared—including the depression, impotence, queasy stomach, sleep disturbance, and absence of appetite. He really felt better, both because the good relationship with his son was restored and, of course, because his original wish to be whole was realized. This meant that his pride was restored and he could continue with his life—going to work, sharing life with his common-law wife, speaking to his sons, and also continuing his caring for his woman friend who would never yield to him in the way he wanted, neither when she was younger and married, nor now in her late eighties when she was widowed and ill. Yet despite his unfulfilled yearning for this other woman, this strong, proud, eighty-year-old gentleman carried on as usual.