Dragon Lady*

The myth of the dragon with female attributes is almost as wide spread as knowledge of the use of fire. Scattered all over the world there are to be found examples of this fierce, fantastic, sharply-toothed female monster, with the combined features of a number of animals.

My interest in the Dragon Lady motive was first aroused by its extensive use in Oriential sculpture and later by an analyzand who exhibited a severe dragon phobia. He told how one day during a mathematics lecture he felt himself becoming dizzy and about to swoon. Hurriedly leaving the class room he rushed outside. He was trembling all over. Upon reaching the sidewalk his knees gave way and he dropped to the pavement in a state of panic. There he remained in a spastic paralytic-like condition. Back in his quarters at the dormitory, he was aware of his heart beating excessively fast and that a feeling of great fear was overcoming him—a fear that he was about to be exposed to an inescapable death-dealing danger. He fought constantly against loosing control of his faculties, against fainting and going ‘out of his head’. He said that if he had ‘let go’ he would have gone insane. When he laid down at night his anxiety became so great, he would then have to sit up and he passed many nights in an upright position.

This man's anxiety attack proved to be centered on a female instructor with whom he was soon to study in an advance mathematics course. The instructor, on account of her oriental features, almond shaped eyes, black hair. long slim fingers and finger-nails, was often referred to by the students as the “Dragon Lady”. It was on an occasion when an instructor in a lower course made some reference which reminded my analyzand of his future female instructor that he experienced his first attack of panic.

His fear began to spread and to assume protean form. He could not remain in any crowded room, especially if