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In this paper, it will be shown how a fantasy described by the patient contained the roots of many of her unconscious emotions, many of which had not yet emerged in the treatment.
The terms “fantasy” and “phantasy” will be used here as suggested by Susan Isaacs (1952) when she differentiated the two terms, as follows: “The English translators of Freud adopted a special spelling of the word ‘phantasy’ with the ‘ph’ in order to differentiate the psycho-analytical significance of the term, i.e., predominantly or entirely unconscious phantasies, from the popular word ‘fantasy’, meaning conscious day-dreams, fictions and so on”. However, even a conscious fantasy has deeper significance and the fantasy described in this paper masked unconscious phantasies and was rich in latent content.
Anne was twelve years old and in her first year at secondary school when she was referred to the Child Guidance Clinic. The presenting symptom was worry over homework, over which she spent several hours every evening, but, as well as this, Anne's life was dominated by anxiety, fears and phobias. She was obsessionally clean and tidy and very slow in washing and dressing. She was frightened of going anywhere alone and felt sick on buses. She was very anxious over what people would think of her and the slightest reprimand at school made her want to go to another school. She was paranoid towards her schoolfellows and constantly imagined them talking about her.
Anne was the eldest of several children in a prudish religious family who reinforced some of her obsessional characteristics. She was of low average intelligence and found the school work difficult, but this was not the cause of the hours spent on it. She would obsessionally copy again any work containing the slightest error or smudge. Even when teachers told her she would not be punished for untidy work, she continued at her self-punitive task, leaving herself no time for leisure pursuits.
Mother reported that pregnancy an