The Dulcinea Syndrome

“I know my parents have already talked to you,” Terrence said when he was first brought to see me against his will, a morose, angry and lean curly-headed fellow of twenty-three, “so, of course, you’ll believe that it’s the accident and what they keep calling my tantrums and curtness over everything that they want me to see you about.”
“Aren’t they?” I asked.
. “They don’t know the rest of it,” he replied, “The smash-up was just the last straw. Which I reckon, even if it’s a harsh thing to say against them, was really a kind of blessing in disguise. Though I know they’re thankful, of course, that if only by some miracle I survived. They finally got their way. And now I’m here. Like they wanted!” – He shrugged his shoulders with disdain. – “Though I’m damned if I know what
any quack can do about what’s really bubbling inside.”
“Shall we try, at least?” I said. “I’d like to know. If the accident was the last straw, what came before it? What led to it? When did everything start, whatever it is? Clearly it’s been no small thing.”
Terrence, studying his finger-nails with puckered lips and hard-set jaw, hesitated......