ABSTRACT
As mentioned at the outset, the sons and fathers profiled were not chosen with any ulterior motive in mind other than to illustrate the difficulties inherent in many father-son relationships, especially as these problems revolve around the ever-present issue of paternal authority. The motivation in choice of son-father dyads depended on three things: a reasonably high probability of a genuine level of positive reader interest concerning the specific son-father combination; the availability of authentic biographical material; and the heuristic and teaching value of the particular son-father relationship. The profiled son-father dyads were not based on any kind of random sampling or scientific selection process. Therefore, one should not generalize from these vignettes.
