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February 14, 1956. PHOBIC AND COUNTERPHOBIC ATTITUDES IN A RESEARCH SCIENTIST. Robert A. Savitt, M.D.
This is a report of an analysis, still in process, of a research scientist, with particular attention paid to phobic and counterphobic mechanisms. The patient, a man in his thirties, had as his main presenting symptom a severe and acute syphilophobia, which followed a visit to a prostitute.
The patient had a phobic and irascible father, and a rather cold rejecting mother who expected the patient to excel intellectually and to make reparation to her for her difficult pregnancy and labor. As a child he was frequently threatened for minor infractions and developed intense feelings of guilt. His early development was precocious. Significantly he had repressed the memory of his mother's second pregnancy when he was four. His aggressive fantasies toward mother were turned into overpoliteness; his sadistic fantasies were sublimated in his research which involved the killing of laboratory animals. Although he observed his sister's anatomy, he managed to scotomize the lack of a penis in women