Night Terrors and the Mutilation Threat

One of the most frequent neuroses encountered in infants and indeed a not infrequent complaint of pre-pubertal and adolescent patients is the night terror. As Garrigues1 says, the patient “Is a child, sometimes hardly eleven months old, or again he may be twelve or thirteen years old. These are the extreme ages, for usually night terrors manifest themselves between two and six years of age.” They are present equally in both sexes and the crisis of the neuroses which usually brings the child to the clinic is well described by the same author as follows: “The child is put to bed as usual and has fallen asleep. Soon during the first hours of sleep one hears groans, then cries for help. The child is found sitting up straight in bed, his eyes open and fixed upon a terrifying vision. One runs to him, picks him up and tries to comfort him but it is useless for he recognizes no one. Gradually the image disappears. … Next day even the memory of the event has flown.”

Many organic conditions have been suspected as the cause of these distressing episodes and almost a corresponding number of therapeutic aids that may be used by the physician have been suggested. For instance, it has been held in turn in the literature to be an accessory symptom of typhoid fever, pneumonia, rheumatism, the cardiopathies, gastrointestinal dyspepsia, acidosis, migraine2 and anaemia. Again, in countries where alcoholic drinks are given to very young children such drinking has popularly been under suspicion as a causative agent and even as recently as 1923 in citing nine cases of children between the ages of five and eleven years suffering from night terrors, Obarrio and Macome3 of Buenos Aires concluded: