My wife lost her grandmother's ring and was devastated. After two days of searching, I found it under the passenger seat of my car. I could have simply given it to her.
Instead, I placed it near a drawer she had already searched because she was blaming herself for being careless. Later she found it and became ridiculously relieved. I don't fully understand why I did that. Maybe I wanted her to feel she had solved the problem herself. She still says, "I knew I had checked that drawer badly."