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IN THIS PAPER I wish to present certain clinical examples illustrating fantasies and possible memories of the birth experience.
In psycho-analytic theory there has been some confusion since Freud put forward the valuable idea that the symptomatology of anxiety may be related to birth trauma. It is not clear whether birth memories are individual or racial, whether birth can be normal or whether trauma is an inherent part of birth or a variable and chance accompaniment. Also, what exactly is the nature of the trauma in terms of ego psychology? There is therefore much left over for research, and perhaps the following collection of ideas may be useful in stimulating thought.
It is difficult to know how to quote Freud usefully at this point. To do Freud justice one would have to write a separate paper tracing the changes in his views on the relationship between anxiety and birth trauma. This would be an excellent exercise and it has already been done, notably by Greenacre.2 In any case it is not necessary for me to try to do justice to Freud's views here. On re-reading many of his references to the subject since writing the main part of my paper, I think I can find everything that I have suggested somewhere in his writings. Perhaps I could best quote the sentence where he says: ‘Now it would be very satisfactory if anxiety, as a symbol of separation, were to be repeated on every subsequent occasion on which a separation took place, but unfortunately we are prevented from making use of this correlation by the fact that birth is not experienced subjectively as a separation from the mother, since the foetus, being a completely narcissistic creature, is totally unaware of