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).

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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 StudyWhen 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

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’

Psychoanalytic Idea

Freud Says Little Hans

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’

Results of Analysis

The EventThe InterpretationThe Conclusions

Oedipus Complex

Han’s feared his mother would abandon him• 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 TheoryThis 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 HansWhen 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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