Magic and the Castration-Complex1

During the night between 22 and 23 November, 19 …, my patient R., who was suffering from psycho-sexual disturbances and had typical phallic-narcissistic character-traits, had the following dream which he related to me a few hours later:

I seemed to be in the courtyard of the M. Institute, where I was educated as a boy. I was walking around with an unknown man, possibly a servant. This man asked if he could borrow my fountain-pen, to which I agreed. But, to my great disappointment, he was not giving my pen back to me.

On the previous day, R. had been asked to contact a rather imposing politician. In order to be well received, he had prompted his father (a prominent businessman) to give him some support. R.'s father, however, had only given his son a visiting-card, and this had disappointed R. to a considerable extent.

The dream could, therefore, be interpreted as follows: The courtyard represents a feminine (maternal) genital area. R.'s wish to have the 'power' (= penis) of an adult man (= father, analyst) is being frustrated (as the dreamer had been frustrated in reality by the disobliging father)—to the point that he himself, R., is subject to the loss of all assertiveness, and his own penis. In fact, not only does R. fail to receive a phallic endowment (fountain-pen) from a male adult, but the latter might take away R.'s own masculine equipment and he, R., might comply. … It seems obvious that in the unknown man of his dream, R. has condensed the castrating father and the frustrating analyst, who both, in his mind, do not give him their 'power' (= penis); whom he still feels from time to time to be powerful as well as 'dangerous' figures, and to whom he might be inclined to 'surrender'.

After relating the day-remnants which have already been quoted, R. was helped to understand the general meaning of his dream, and had no difficulty in accepting my interpretations (he was in his third year of analysis). No particular justification, h