A Necrophilic Phantasy1

In this paper I intend to describe a phantasy that was brought to light in the analysis of a patient, and I shall try to show its crucial importance for the patient's whole personality. I shall have to leave out a general description of the man, his background, the course of his analysis, etc., as such a description would be beyond the scope of the present short communication.

One day my patient, M., a man in his late forties, told me the following dream: 'He was lying in bed with a woman on a kind of balcony inside a room near the ceiling. The husband of the woman was lying on the floor above; he and the woman were lying head to foot. At some point he uncovered her to make love to her, and he then realized that she was a wooden doll. He noticed especially her wooden legs.'

To the woman in bed he associated a woman of his acquaintance, old and very rich. He would like to marry her for her money, but he is terrified of how possessive and sexually demanding she would be. The thought of her 'old, empty, stinking vagina' made him shudder.

The balcony near the ceiling he associated with my former consulting room. The man on the floor above was my husband. He wondered what my husband would do if he found us together on the couch. He also thought that I might prefer my husband to him, a thought which he found quite unbearable and brushed away.

The position, head to foot, he associated to being in bed with a young boy when he himself was younger, also with another situation involving an older man. In his associations he referred to his fears of his own homosexuality which had often come up in his analysis. He is aware of strong homosexual tendencies in himself, but views them with great horror.

At that point I summarized his associations and suggested that he was beset by fears: if he sleeps with the old and rich woman she will exhaust him; if he attempts to sleep with the young and married one he fears either rejection or the vengeance of the husband; he cannot sle