Mother's Death 母亲之死 This pattern of life persisted in Don's family until he was about fourteen years old. At that point something happened to change the course of his life and the lives of his family in profound ways—Don's mother became ill. She had developed a cancer of the liver. No treatment was possible. The course of her illness was lingering and drawn out over several months. She gradually wasted away and finally died. Don was especially close to her in these last months of her life. He attended her in her illness. He spent most of his time with her. He remembered little of his feelings at that time. He did remember feeling guilty for his thoughts about her dying—his fantasying about all the sympathy he would get from people after her death. 这种生活模式一直持续在唐的家庭中，直到他大约14岁。就在那时，发生了一件事，深刻地改变了他和他家人的生活轨迹——唐的母亲生病了。她得了肝癌。没有治疗的可能。她的病持续了好几个月。她逐渐消瘦下去，最后死了。在她生命的最后几个月里，唐和她特别亲近。他在她生病时照料她。他大部分时间都和她在一起。他几乎不记得自己当时的感受了。他确实记得自己对她去世的想法感到内疚——他幻想着她死后他能从人们那里得到所有的同情。 She finally died, but at first Don did not feel her loss very deeply. He felt lonely for about a month, but felt that showing any feelings would have been a sign of weakness. In fact he felt somewhat relieved by her death. He was happy to have gotten rid of the constant fighting that was such a source of distress for him. It was apparent, however, as Don talked about these events surrounding his mother's death, that he was deeply affected by her loss. When he began to talk about her death, his eyes watered and his voice choked. The mourning process had not yet run its course, and he had not yet been able to resolve or come to terms with her death. This was one important area of work for his future therapy. The mark of her death was unmistakably on him. Not only was the pain of her loss still apparent, but the overall impression that he gave clinically was that somehow his development—however mitigated by the experiences prior to her death—had somehow stalled and remained at a plateau since her death. His appearance and manner were very much that of a young adolescent. Even his physical stature and appearance conveyed that impression, let alone the psychological issues he presented. 她终于去世了，但一开始唐并没有对失去她感到很难过。他感到孤独了大约一个月，但他觉得表现出任何感情都是软弱的表现。事实上，她的死多少让他松了一口气。他很高兴摆脱了无休止的争吵，这是他痛苦的根源。然而，当唐谈起他母亲去世时发生的这些事情时，很明显，他被母亲的离去深深地影响了。当他开始谈论她的死时，他的眼睛湿润了，声音哽咽了。哀悼的过程还没有结束，他还无法下定决心或接受她的死亡。这是他未来治疗的一个重要领域。她的死亡痕迹无疑在他身上。不仅失去她的痛苦仍然明显，而且他在临床上给人的总体印象是，不知怎的，他的发展——尽管在她死前的经历减轻了——在她死后不知怎的停滞了，并保持在一个平台期。他的外表和举止很像一个年轻的青少年。甚至他的身材和外表都传达了这种印象，更不用说他所呈现的心理问题了。 While the sense of loss and rage at his mother's death had been more or less repressed in Don's own response, the effects of his mother's death on the rest of the family were profound. His father took her death as a severe blow. He became increasingly morose and withdrawn. He kept to himself much of the time, and let his already slender practice more or less slip away from him. He began to stay home all day long and never went out. His social life deteriorated radically, and he would allow himself a rare and occasional dinner with old friends. The father erected a sort of shrine composed of pictures and favored objects associated with Don's mother. The father's depression and withdrawal lasted for a considerable length of time. Over the years he had become somewhat less withdrawn and depressed, but the effects were still evident. He, too, had been unable to adequately mourn his wife's passing. When he spoke of her it was to praise her, to say what a wonderful woman she was, what a good wife and mother she had been. Don reflected how different this was from what had passed between them when she had been alive. Further, the father became quite negligent of his own health. He was a fairly severe diabetic, to the point of having developed retinal complications that had affected his eyesight. He stopped following his diet, and often neglected his insulin. Don saw this behavior as self-destructive, and it worried and angered him, perhaps because this self-destructive behavior on his father's part came too close to fulfilling his own murderous wishes in his father's regard. 虽然唐对母亲去世的失落和愤怒或多或少被压抑在自己的反应中，但母亲的去世对其他家庭成员的影响是深远的。他父亲认为她的死是一个沉重的打击。他变得越来越忧郁和孤僻。他大部分时间都是一个人呆着，让他本来就不多的业务或多或少地溜走了。他开始整天呆在家里，从来不出去。他的社交生活急剧恶化，他偶尔会允许自己和老朋友吃顿难得的晚餐。父亲建起了一个类似神龛的东西，里面摆满了与唐的母亲有关的图画和心爱的物品。父亲的抑郁和孤僻持续了相当长一段时间。这些年来，他变得不那么孤僻和抑郁了，但影响仍然很明显。他也未能充分哀悼他妻子的去世。当他谈到她的时候，他是在赞美她，说她是一个多么了不起的女人，是一个多么好的妻子和母亲。唐心里想，这和她在世时他们之间发生的事情是多么不同。此外，父亲对自己的健康也很不重视。他是一个相当严重的糖尿病患者，已经发展到视网膜并发症，影响了他的视力。他停止了节食，经常忽视胰岛素的使用。唐认为这种行为是自毁的，这让他感到担心和愤怒，也许是因为他父亲的这种自毁行为太接近实现他的杀人愿望[杀父亲？还是父亲子弹上膛的手枪表现出来的杀人愿望？我倾向于前者]。