Meetings of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York

April 17, 1961. PREGENITAL ASPECTS OF PREGNANCY FANTASIES. Gilbert J. Rose, M.D.

Male pregnancy fantasies usually are viewed as derivatives of passive homosexual wishes, and the phallic aspects are stressed. Yet, as early as 1908, Freud wrote that the cloacal theory of birth enabled the boy to have birth fantasies

without implying feminine inclinations. A few recent papers have pointed out the active and omnipotent, rather than definitely feminine, character of the male's early wish for a baby.

Dr. Rose reported two cases illustrating some of the pregenital aspects of male pregnancy fantasies. A childless man, the oldest of several siblings, had been agoraphobic for most of the twenty years of his marriage. His analysis showed that 'going out' was a forbidden, Oedipal sexual activity which mobilized much castration anxiety, and brought out the existence of a pregnancy and rectal birth fantasy, culminating on the last day of the ninth month of treatment. The fantasy of being mother and bearing children was an attempt at restitution for death wishes against mother and protected the patient against the mortification of being passively overwhelmed by sibling rivals, as well as against being separated from mother and starving. The second case was a male college student who became increasingly depressed and anxious following his mother's suicidal attempt. During treatment he showed a recurrent and dramatic form of behavior, approximating a hysterical attack. The clinical material suggested a pregnancy fantasy. When it was interpreted as such, a traumatic memory was recovered and, behind it, a wish for his sister's death. The sister's birth had been followed by his undergoing catastrophic surgeries and separations—experiences which the hysterical behavior condensed and repeated symbolically. It was then possible to view the pregnancy fantasy as having more than homosexual significance; it was an attempt to undo the death wish, correct his being passively displ