A Case of Phobia of Darkness

Peter, a man aged 28, married for a few years, without children, came to consult the writer in September, 1950, in a state of severe anxiety and with a phobia of darkness. He complained also of a burning sensation in the stomach and a sense of heaviness in heart. No physiological reason for somatic symptoms was revealed in the medical examination.

In the first interview, he complained of his anxiety and consequent inability to concentrate on anything. When travelling in a bus, he would want it to continue without stopping. He developed anxiety when away from home, when he attended church and when he came for therapy. He was afraid to sleep alone at night because of the darkness, and would very seldom venture out at night. His condition developed after his marriage.

He narrated the following traumatic experience of his boyhood. One day he purchased some chemicals for making firecrackers to celebrate a forthcoming Church Festival and asked a younger Hindu boy of the neighborhood to aid him in mixing the chemicals. During this procedure, the chemicals exploded and the boy died immediately on the spot. This scene was haunting the patient, producing a sense of guilt.

Naturally, I was led to connect the traumatic experience with the phobia; the anxiety being occasioned by the thoroughly repressed part of the experience. Peter also said that he was afraid of an evil spirit which would attack him at night. Hence, my attempt was directed towards bringing out the repressed material.

For weeks I tried to bring out the repressed material through different means—ranging from word associations to hypnosis—without avail. He could not give any further detail than that which he described at the beginning. Therefore, the hypothesis that the phobia was due to repression of some experience connected with the traumatic experience was rejected.

An entirely different line of approach to the problem was opened up by a dream that he narrated on the first day of therapy. He dreamed that he flew t