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Chairman and Gentlemen:
It gives me special pleasure to be given the opportunity to appear before the New York Psychoanalytic Society and as a member to present my first American case.
I am aware that the presented case will be a very condensed one and that many interesting details will be omitted, though they are important for the complete description of the case and the analysis, but as the case cannot be reported in minute detail, I will describe it briefly and give examples from the patient's numerous and vivid dream life which were of great analytic value. I shall emphasize the working mechanisms of the neurosis, the character development of the patient through faulty identification and the ways in which the character was influenced by the analysis.
The patient is thirty-six years old, a teacher, very intelligent, well oriented in psychology and in psychoanalytic literature. She came to me with severe neurotic complaints centering around a horse phobia which became unbearable during the last few months.
Her main apprehension was that a horse would fall and break its legs. Whenever she walked on the street she compulsively thought of the possibility of the horse's falling on the slippery pavement (this was during the Winter) and breaking its legs, which was a source of great annoyance to her.
A few of her other complaints were fear of tuberculosis of the lungs, a sharp pain under her left shoulder blade, weakness of the whole left side and especially the left arm, shortness of breath, an oppressive feeling on her chest, a steady high blood pressure which puzzled her physicians and frequent urination (about every two hours) and also at night. She was always tired and the doctors considered this a toxic result of her lung trouble. The patient actually