Little Hans and the Wolf-Man in Retrospect

When psychiatric and psychoanalytic case histories are presented to colleagues in meetings, journals or books, they must be written so that the identity of the patient will not be recognized. This was the procedure in Freud's time as it is now. In many cases Freud, however, gave the patients “real” names, which, accordingly, were not their own names. To invent such names may imply special problems, which Freud himself has commented on (Freud 1904). The one case history of Breuer on Anna O., and Freud's five case histories deal with patients with such invented names, which by now are so well-known that in reality they are parts of our professional, cultural and historical background. But in 1953, one of psychoanalysis’ own men identified Anna O. Ernest Jones wrote that since she had been the one who discovered the cathartic method, her name: Bertha Pappenheim, deserved to be commemorated (Jones, 1953).

Neither have the leading characters in Freud's five great case histories remained anonymous. Two of the women: Emmy von N. and Dora have been identified as Fanny Moser and Ida Bauer, and both have been followed up in their later years. Little Hans and The Wolf-Man have also been identified and there is abundant literature about them. This interest in the real persons in these case histories is unparalleled in psychoanalysis at large, not to speak of psychiatry in general. The most important reason may be that only Freud has, in a case history, combined a detailed picture of a special psychological disturbance and a living picture of an individual person. His case histories have, in fact, been characterized as literary masterpieces.