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It is well known that oral conflicts play a significant role in certain psychiatric disorders and psychosomatic problems. These conflicts are intense in many alcoholics. A revealing fantasy was described by a patient during treatment. He recalled that when he was twelve or thirteen years old he was aware of the mechanics of sexual intercourse. Yet he was not sure how the baby came to be in the mother's body. He knew that it grew there. He believed that during intercourse the growing fetus would take the father's penis into its mouth and obtain its nourishment in that way.
The patient described another childhood fantasy. When he went to bed at night he was able to make himself experience the sensation that his entire body was getting very heavy. Then he felt himself curled up, round and almost inanimate. When he described this he said it might sound strange, but it was as if in doing this it seemed to be a return to the mother's womb.
Those years were most significant for the patient's development. He was living in a rural area with “foster parents” to whom his own parents had sent him, ostensibly to give him an environment superior to the socio-economically deprived one in which the remainder of the family was reared. He claimed the foster parents treated him badly. He felt depressed and suffered from severe headaches. He was essentially the deserted child. He felt he did not have his mother's love and resented her stupidity. He hated his harsh, ignorant, insensitive father.