Analysis Of A Phobia In A Five Year Old Boy (1909) Sigmund Freud

AIM To treat Little Hans, a young boy who was seen as suffering from anxiety and phobias Freud uses this case study to support his psychoanalytic ideas

The Case Study Hans’ father provided Freud with details of conversations with Hans. Freud and the father tried to understand what the boy was experiencing to resolve his phobias.

The Case Study When Hans was 3 he developed an interest in his ‘widdler’ (penis) and also those of other people. For example on one occasion he asked ‘Mummy, have you got a widdler too? Throughout this time, the main theme of his fantasies and dreams was widdlers and widdling (masturbation). Image Censored

The Case Study When he was about 3 ½ his mother told him not to touch his widdler or she would call the doctor to come and cut it off.

The Case Study When he was 3 ½ his mother had a baby girl, Hannah. He was resentful of the baby. He developed a phobia of the bath.

The Case Study Hans later developed a fear of horses He overheard a father tell his son ‘Don’t put your finger on the white horse or it will bite you.’ He saw a horse pulling a carriage fall down and kick about with its legs This fear went on to generalize to carts and busses

The Case Study Throughout the study Hans expressed anxiety that his mother would leave him (abandonment)

The Case Study Hans’ fantasies: Being the father of his children, whom he made widdle That his mother showed him her widdle That he had taken a smaller crumpled giraffe away from a taller giraffe

The Case Study Hans’ fantasies: That the plumber snaked out Hans’ belly That the plumber replaced Hans’ behind and his penis with larger ones

The Case Study Hans’ fantasies: That Hans was the father of his own children with his mother and that his father was their grandfather After this last fantasy and the ‘help’ he received from his father and Freud his anxieties and phobias and the psychoanalysis came to an end

Methods of analysis (Freud never actually treated Hans. All help was received through his father) Inferring the unconscious causes of Hans behavior through interpretation and decoding of psychoanalytic symbols

Methods of analysis Confronting Hans with these unconscious causes by telling him about them and discussing them consciously Little Hans faces his demons

This is Little Hans and Freud Psychoanalytic Ideas Freud uses this case study to support his psychoanalytic ideas This is Little Hans and Freud

Psychoanalytic Idea Freud Says Little Hans Unconscious determinism People aren’t consciously aware of their motives Little Hans wasn’t aware of sources of his behavior, dreams, etc Psychosexual development Libido seeks gratification through different erogenous zones at different ages Little Hans was in the phallic stage The Oedipus Complex In the phallic stage boys direct their sexual feelings towards their mothers, see their fathers as rivals and therefore fear castration. Little Hans sometimes called ‘Little Oedipus’

Freud Says Little Hans Psychoanalytic Idea The cause of phobias Phobias were caused by unconscious anxiety being displaced onto harmless external objects Little Han’s unconscious fear of being castrated by his father was displaced as a fear of being bitten by white horses Psychoanalytic theory Treats disturbed behavior & thoughts by: Finding behavior’s unconscious causes Bringing causes into ‘the open’ & thus resolving them Little Hans’ behavior was analyzed and then confronted and then ‘cured’

The Event The Interpretation The Conclusions Results of Analysis The Event The Interpretation The Conclusions

Oedipus Complex Han’s feared his mother would abandon him Fear of bath Freud interpreted this as anxiety caused by the sexual arousal of sleeping in his mother’s bed Fear of bath Death wish for sister Taking small giraffe from big giraffe Taking mother from father Fear of heavily loaded cart Fear of his mother being pregnant

Castration Fear Fear of being bitten by white horses Fear of father (glasses & moustache) displaced onto horse (black blinders & muzzle) biting his finger (castrating him)

Resolution of the Oedipus Complex Fantasy of plumber providing larger widdler Identifying with his father by being more like him Fantasy of being father of his mother’s children & his father being their grandfather Fulfillment of having mother but allowing his father to live

Evaluation of the Method Case study Pro-Useful for therapeutic reasons Con-lack of generalization Objectivity? Were ideas attributed to Little Hans that weren’t his? Freud was aware of this problem but said, “Psychoanalysis is not an impartial investigation but a therapeutic measure. Its essence is not to prove anything, but to alter something.”

Evaluation of Theory This theory is difficult to test Cannot operationalize and measure in any scientific way such concept as DISPLACEMENT However, this does not PROVE that it is not valid

Evaluation of Theory Other explanations John Bowlby (1949) (also a psychoanalyst) argued that Hans' phobia could be explained in terms of Attachment Theory Attachment theory: If caregivers are available and responsive to their infant's needs then the baby knows that the caregiver is dependable which creates a secure base for the child to explore the world Bowlby believed that most of Hans' anxiety arose from actual threats by his the mother to desert the family. Hans' parents were not getting along at the time and divorced soon after Hans’ phobia was resolved

Evaluation of Theory Other explanations Another explanation for Hans' phobia is that he was classically conditioned to fear horses. Classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. Hans witnessed a horse fall in the street. Hans then generalized this fear to all horses. It has also been suggested that his mother was abusive to Hanna and that Hans associated her screams with the noises that horses make when they fall down.

Critiques Ethnocentric: The idea of the nuclear family is not a cultural universal so these theories cannot apply to everyone Androcentric: Male centered

Big Hans When he was 19, Herbert Graf visited Freud’s consulting room after having read his case history. Hans confirmed that he had suffered no problems during adolescence and that he was well adjusted. He could not remember those discussions with his father. He said that when he read the case study it “...came to him as something unknown.” He became an opera producer.

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