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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the specific impact on the patient of Freud's having fed the Rat Man. I view the feeding as a causal facet of Freud's evolving pioneering technique, which in 1907 still retained many parameters, but was brilliantly successful Jones, 1955, p. 263) because of the force of his personality and his therapeutic genius.
Stimulated by the publication of the “Original Record of the Case” (Freud, 1909, pp. 251–318) containing “the actual notes ‘made on the evening of the day of treatment’” (Strachey, 1955, p. 253), the literature on the case of the Rat Man has by now become extensive. Areas for fruitful research nevertheless remain.
Because of an experience with a postpsychotic patient I had treated some years previously, I was struck by the note Freud wrote on December, 1907: “He was hungry and was fed” (1909, p. 303). My patient was a 30-year-old man who had been hospitalized many months for the treatment of a recurrent paranoid schizophrenia. He was in remission, and I was seeing him supportively as an outpatient twice a week. His appointment was the last of the day, and on this particular day I knew I required coffee to manage his session. I also knew that if I had coffee, it would be wise if he did too—though I knew that if he did, there would be repercussions. So we had coffee, and in a few minutes he was raging psychotically, barely able to remain seated. But, with perseverance, by