Phallic Symbolism in a Narcissistic Neurosis

Psychosexual reactions to manifold phallic symbols, created either intrapsychically or apprehended from external influences, were the outstanding characteristic in the narcissistic neurosis of a young woman twenty-one years of age. The neurosis teemed with symbolic material which determined her behavior and from which she gratified her erotism. As examples of the interweaving of the neurosis with symbols two of her productions have been selected—the first, a Lilliputian phantasy, illustrating the dramatization of her basic OEdipus conflict; and the second, a letter, portraying her sensitization to the phallic symbols in the forces of nature. The phantasy originating at puberty has appeared periodically for a decade, is always identical in its dramatization, arises spontaneously and can be recalled at will, and is lived through with exhilaration and sexual excitement.

“My tongue swells until it fills my mouth tightly. Then there is a vibration in the back of my throat extending upward and my head enlarges to eighteen inches in diameter. At the same time my body diminishes in size until I become a tiny being, a Lilliputian, about a foot tall. My fingers lengthen to six or seven inches, then stiffen and swell to two inches in diameter. I am walking down the slope of a field and I am in a state of high excitement.”

To the enlarged fingers Miss A. associated her father's phallus which she had regularly seen at the time of puberty when, in his haste to get to his office in the morning, Mr. A. would use the bathroom while his daughter was finishing her toilet. Seeing her father's phallus stimulated erotic desires toward him and her older brother and heightened her autoerotism. At this time her father gave her a Great Dane toward whom she gradually directed libido split off from the œdipus. She studied his sexual behavior, his erections and copulations, and she herself became excited when he sniffed at her genitals through her clothes. In her dreams the Dane plunged nose and