[prompt at bottom]
The Father Complex
Bob Harrington was, by all accounts, a good psychotherapist. He had a warm office with a comfortable couch, walls lined with books, and a reputation for being compassionate yet incisive. His patients trusted him, respected him, and most importantly, kept coming back. It was a small source of pride for Bob, who, at 40, had carved out a fulfilling career in helping others untangle their emotional knots.
But lately, Bob's sessions had taken a peculiar turn.
His elderly father, a man he’d always felt ambivalent toward, had died a few months ago at the age of 85. The news had not struck him with the clean grief he'd expected, but instead with a muddled cocktail of frustration, guilt, and anger. His father had been domineering, critical, and maddeningly unyielding, casting a long shadow over Bob’s sense of self. For years, Bob had thought of therapy as a way to reclaim some of that stolen light. Yet now, with his father gone, it was as though the unresolved conflict had been set loose in his mind, hungry for closure it would never get.
At first, Bob confined these feelings to his personal reflections, journaling about his anger and confusion. But as the weeks passed, they began to bleed into his work. What started as brief personal anecdotes intended to empathize with his patients grew into lengthy diatribes about his father’s rigidity, his cutting remarks, the years of walking on eggshells. Bob would catch himself mid-rant, apologize, and try to steer the conversation back, but the pattern persisted.
By the third month, his patients barely had a chance to talk.
Bob’s awareness of the problem was dim, hidden behind a veil of rationalizations. “I’m being vulnerable,” he told himself. “Showing my humanity. Surely it’s helpful for them to see me as a person, not just a professional.” But he knew, deep down, that his grief and resentment were spilling over like an untreated wound, and his patients were left holding the mess.
One Wednesday afternoon, Bob’s 3:30 appointment was a new patient: a 65-year-old man named Arthur Krantz. Arthur entered the office with an air of quiet dignity, his silver beard neatly trimmed, his tweed jacket immaculate. He carried himself with a certain thoughtful gravity, and Bob felt a jolt of recognition—Arthur reminded him uncannily of Sigmund Freud.
The session began as they always did, with Bob inviting Arthur to share what had brought him in. Arthur, however, had barely finished his opening sentence when Bob interjected, hijacking the conversation toward his own narrative.
“You know,” Bob said, leaning forward, “your story actually reminds me of something I’ve been wrestling with lately. My father was... a very difficult man. Critical. Overbearing. My life has been twisted his constant need to be right. Life with my father was a living nightmare.”
Arthur nodded slowly, his expression neutral but attentive. “Hmm,” he said, a sound that was neither agreement nor dissent but an invitation for Bob to continue.
And continue he did.
The next twenty minutes were a monologue. Bob vented about the countless childhood disappointments, the sharp-tongued criticisms that had cut him down just as he began to feel confident, the way his father’s voice still echoed in his head, undermining his every decision. He barely noticed Arthur’s occasional murmurs of “I see” or “Go on,” nor the slight narrowing of Arthur’s eyes as he listened.
When Bob paused to catch his breath, Arthur made his first substantive remark. “It sounds like your father held immense power over your sense of worth,” he said. “Even now, in his absence, that power persists.”
The words were so simple, so obvious, that Bob felt almost insulted. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “And that’s what frustrates me. Why can’t I let it go? He’s dead. It should be over, but it’s not. It’s like—”
Arthur interrupted him gently. “Perhaps,” he said, “it is not your father who holds the power now, but your own refusal to grieve the version of him you needed but never had.”
Bob froze.
Arthur leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. “Sometimes,” he continued, “we hold on to anger because it’s safer than mourning. Anger gives us something to fight against. Grief, on the other hand, leaves us vulnerable. But it is the grieving—not the anger—that will set you free.”
Bob felt the words strike him like a physical blow. He opened his mouth to reply but found himself speechless. In that moment, Arthur’s calm presence filled the room, and for the first time in months, Bob felt a crack in the wall he’d built around his emotions.
He had spent so much time fighting his father’s ghost, he realized, that he’d never allowed himself to mourn the father he’d wanted—the supportive, loving figure who would never exist. That loss was real, and it was raw.
“I... I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Bob finally said, his voice unsteady.
Arthur offered a faint smile. “It’s a process.”
For the rest of the session, Bob sat in uncharacteristic silence, letting Arthur speak about his own struggles. Yet even as Arthur shared his story, Bob’s mind kept returning to the words that had shaken him awake. Grieving the father he’d needed but never had. The truth of it was undeniable.
When the session ended, Bob shook Arthur’s hand and thanked him, his voice heavy with sincerity. After Arthur left, Bob remained in his chair, staring at the empty space where his patient had sat. For the first time in months, the anger he carried felt lighter, more manageable, as though it had shifted its shape into something he could begin to release.
Bob sat motionless. He had come to think of himself as the therapist with the answers. Yet here, in his own office, a patient with a beard like Freud’s had turned the tables and given him the insight he hadn’t known he needed.
Write a story about Bob, a middle-aged man who is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. He is considered a good psychotherapist. It always has quite a few patients who appreciate his work. A few months ago, his elderly father died, the father was 85 and Bob was 40.
Bob had a very difficult relationship with his domineering and critical father. Over the next several weeks, Bob spent more and more time in each therapy session with his patients, talking about his own frustrations, anger, and ambivalence for his father.
Soon this dominates nearly the full 50 minutes and the patients hardly have a chance to talk.
However, in the fourth session with your story will describe, a new patient come in who is a 65-year-old man with a neatly trimmed silver beard and tweet jacket who reminds Bob of Sigmund Freud. Bob latches into his usual diatribe about his unpleasant late father, and althoughthis patient makes only a few small well placed comments, it has a transformative therapeutic effect on Bob. That is the surprise ending of the story.
