Preoedipal Factors in “Little Hans”

As the first published report of the treatment of a child and as Freud's first “child analysis,” the “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five Year Old Boy” (1909) occupies a special place in the history of psychoanalysis. As with so many of Freud's case histories, “Little Hans” has lost none of its immediacy, and Freud's narrative continues to offer a direct view into the thought processes and special concerns of a five-year-old boy. During the years since its publication, however, extensive analytic experience with phobic patients, both children and adults, and increased knowledge about child development, have provided new information that broadens our understanding of Hans and his phobia. This discussion will reconsider “Little Hans” in light of the increasing awareness of pregenital factors and disturbances of separation-individuation in the development of phobias.

A number of authors have returned to Freud's cases for reexamination in light of current analytic theory and a recent book has been devoted to revisiting Freud's clinical material . Macalpine and Hunter (1953) reconsidered the Schreber case with particular emphasis on the importance of the “reactivation of archaic asexual procreation fantasies with concomitant loss of sex differentiation” (p. 318). In a paper that explores Freud's adolescent patients, Glenn (1980) considers Dora from the perspective of ego psychology. Using the original case material as the source for his formulation, he looks more closely at Dora's defense mechanisms and identifies her narcissistic aspirations, especially her wish to be admired by Freud. Blacker and Abraham (1979), through a careful comparison of Freud's notes with his reported case, emphasize the importance of maternal influences on the “Rat Man.” They show that the published case contains strikingly fewer references to women and to the Rat Man's mother, in particular, than do the original notes. They suggest that Freud's