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Detective stories are a recognized part of our literature. Both adults and children become absorbed in them and are equally impatient of interruption. For the adult they are accepted reading, but the child must often hide his stories and read them in secret. Some educators think they should prevent their pupils from reading detective stories or at least discourage it as much as possible. But experience teaches that such measures as prohibition, criticism or efforts to influence the child's judgment result merely in greater caution against detection.
When reasoning and advice both prove powerless before a child's misbehavior or habit, we may attribute to it an unconscious significance. In an article, The Penny Dreadful,1 Hans Zulliger analyzed one of these adventure stories and disclosed its unconscious meaning for a boy whose favorite story it was. He found that by reading detective stories this boy was able to ward off his anxiety.
In an analysis of a young boy, I had an opportunity to study a compulsion to read detective stories.
Charles began the analysis at the age of twelve. He was a large, handsome boy with an open countenance but very reserved manner. His paternal uncle brought him to me because of severe anxiety and difficulties in learning. Charles, his mother and a sister about two years older lived with this uncle. His father had died two years previously. The mother suffered from epileptic attacks which occurred usually at night. Although he shared the bedroom with his mother, Charles was said to take no notice of them, indeed to continue sleeping.
In the first session, Charles told of his fear that a man might leap upon him from the darkness and choke or crush him. He was afraid to open his eyes for fear someone might be looking at him. In the second session it transpired that Charles' difficulty