Freud's Cases:
(Including Lacan's assessments)
(Including Lacan's assessments)
Detailed Description: Anna O., a highly intelligent and creative young woman, developed a bizarre array of symptoms after her father fell ill and she became his primary caregiver. These included:
Paralysis: Loss of sensation and movement in her limbs, often fluctuating and shifting.
Visual Disturbances: Squinting, double vision, and difficulty focusing.
Speech and Language Problems: She lost the ability to speak her native German for a time, communicating only in English, and later experienced aphasia (difficulty finding words) and agrammatism (speaking in ungrammatical sentences).
Hydrophobia: Inability to drink water, despite intense thirst.
"Absent" States: Periods of altered consciousness, resembling trances or daydreams, during which she would mutter to herself and seem disconnected from her surroundings.
Breuer treated her using hypnosis, during which she would recall specific traumatic events, often related to her father's illness. For example, her hydrophobia was traced back to a repressed memory of seeing a dog she disliked drinking from a glass. When she was able to express the disgust and anger associated with these memories under hypnosis, the corresponding symptoms would often disappear, at least temporarily. Anna O. herself called this process "chimney sweeping" and the "talking cure." She was also a writer, feminist, and social worker, and recovered to have a highly productive life.
Influence (as previously described): Foundational for the "talking cure," catharsis, the concept of the unconscious, and the understanding of hysteria.
Lacan's View: Lacan revisited the case of Anna O. in his discussions of hysteria. He emphasized the role of language and the symbolic order in shaping the hysteric's symptoms. He saw Anna O.'s language disturbances, particularly her shifting between languages, as a manifestation of her struggle to find a place within the symbolic order. For Lacan, the hysteric's desire is fundamentally unsatisfied, and her symptoms are a way of questioning or challenging the established order. He saw the body of the hysteric as a "stage" on which the drama of this unsatisfied desire is played out.
Detailed Description: Dora's parents brought her to Freud at 18 due to a variety of symptoms, including a persistent cough, aphonia (loss of voice), depression, and suicidal ideation. Her family situation was complex and fraught with tension. Her father was having an affair with a married woman, Frau K., and Dora herself was the object of unwanted sexual advances from Frau K.'s husband, Herr K. åShe also felt that her own mother was emotionally distant and preoccupied with domestic matters.
Dream Analysis: Freud focused extensively on Dora's dreams, which were rich in symbolism. For example, a recurring dream about a jewel case was interpreted as representing her own sexuality and her anxieties about it. Freud believed that the dreams expressed her repressed desires and conflicts. She dreamt of a fire in her home, and of refusing her father's efforts to save her. She also dreamt of walking in a strange town, and reading a long letter from her mother.
Transference: Dora developed strong feelings toward Freud, both positive and negative. Freud interpreted this as a transference of her feelings toward her father and Herr K. At times, she seemed to identify with Freud, adopting his mannerisms and ways of speaking. She also expressed anger and resentment toward him, accusing him of being overly focused on sex and of misinterpreting her.
Resistance: Dora resisted many of Freud's interpretations, particularly those related to her supposed sexual attraction to Herr K. and her father. She often contradicted Freud, challenged his authority, and ultimately terminated the treatment abruptly after only three months.
Fragmented Narrative: Dora's account of her experiences was often fragmented and contradictory. She would omit important details, change her story, and contradict herself. Freud saw this as a manifestation of her inner conflicts and her resistance to facing painful truths.
Influence: Solidified dream analysis, highlighted transference and resistance, and raised questions about female sexuality.
Lacan's View: Lacan saw Dora's case as a prime example of the structure of hysteria. He emphasized the role of the Other (the symbolic order, societal expectations, parental figures) in shaping Dora's desire and her sense of self. He interpreted her symptoms as a form of protest against the objectification and alienation she experienced within her family and in the broader social context. Lacan focused on Dora's identification with both Frau K (the object of her father's desire) and Herr K (who desired her). This "mirroring" relationship, he argued, reflected Dora's own fragmented sense of self and her struggle to define her own desire in relation to the desires of others.
Detailed Description: Little Hans's phobia manifested as a fear of going out into the street and, more specifically, a fear that a horse would bite him. This fear was particularly intense regarding large, heavily laden horses pulling carts. Freud analyzed the case through detailed reports from Hans' father, who was a follower of Freud's work.
Symbolic Displacement: Freud interpreted the horse as a symbolic representation of Hans' father. He believed that Hans unconsciously feared his father because of his Oedipal desires for his mother. The fear of being bitten was interpreted as a displaced fear of castration, the imagined punishment for these desires.
Observations of Hans' Behavior: Hans' father meticulously documented his son's behavior, conversations, and fantasies. These observations included Hans' fascination with his own genitals (which he called his "widdler"), his expressions of affection for his mother, and his anxieties about his father.
The Giraffe Fantasy: In one notable fantasy, Hans imagined a big giraffe and a crumpled giraffe in his room. He took the crumpled giraffe (representing his mother) and sat on it, while the big giraffe (representing his father) cried out. This fantasy was interpreted as another manifestation of the Oedipal conflict.
Resolution: Freud believed that Hans' phobia resolved itself as he gradually worked through his Oedipal conflicts. This involved a process of identifying with his father and accepting his place within the family structure.
Influence: Provided supposed empirical support for the Oedipus complex, highlighted childhood sexuality, and explored the development of phobias.
Lacan's View: Lacan revisited the case of Little Hans, particularly in his Seminar IV, "The Object Relation." He was interested in how the phobia functioned as a symbolic object that allowed Hans to navigate the complexities of his relationship with his parents and the demands of the symbolic order. The phobic object, according to Lacan, served as a substitute for the objet a (the lost object of desire) and helped Hans to manage the anxiety associated with the Name-of-the-Father (the symbolic function of the father as the lawgiver). The horse comes to represent the Name-of-the-Father, as well as the objet a, but also as a way to avoid confronting the true lack represented by the mother. The phobia was not simply a fear of the father, as Freud posited, but rather a complex negotiation of desire, lack, and the symbolic order.
Detailed Description: The Rat Man sought treatment from Freud due to debilitating obsessions and compulsions. He was tormented by a particular fantasy involving a form of torture where rats would bore into a person's anus. This fantasy was triggered by a story he heard from a fellow military officer. He was also plagued by obsessive thoughts about harming his father and the woman he loved.
Obsessive Thoughts and Compulsions: He engaged in elaborate rituals to undo or prevent harm from befalling his loved ones. These rituals involved intricate rules about what he could and could not do, and he often felt compelled to repeat actions multiple times. For example, he had to repay a debt to the post office due to a complex series of obsessional thoughts about a package.
Ambivalence: The Rat Man had intense feelings of both love and hate toward his father, who had died before the analysis began. He admired his father but also harbored deep resentment and death wishes toward him. Similar ambivalent feelings were directed toward his love interest. He was also engaged to be married, but obsessed about the woman with whom he was in love.
The Role of the Superego: Freud saw the Rat Man's harsh self-punishment and moralistic tendencies as evidence of a tyrannical superego. The Rat Man constantly felt guilty and expected punishment, even for thoughts he considered unacceptable.
Anal Eroticism: Freud linked the Rat Man's obsessions to unresolved conflicts from the anal stage of psychosexual development. He saw the rat fantasy as a symbolic representation of anal eroticism and aggression.
Influence: Helped develop understanding of obsessional neurosis, highlighted the role of the superego, emphasized ambivalence, and contributed to the concept of the death drive.
Lacan's View: Lacan discussed the Rat Man in his Seminar I, focusing on the structure of obsessional neurosis. He emphasized the role of language and the symbolic order in shaping the Rat Man's symptoms. The Rat Man's obsession with the rat torture story, Lacan argued, was not simply about the content of the story but about its form as a narrative imposed upon him by the Other. The Rat Man's compulsions were an attempt to master this imposed narrative and to create his own symbolic order. The subject is always divided, and the Rat Man shows this clearly. He constantly demands love, but then refuses it. He is overly moral, yet breaks his own moral code. Lacan also highlighted the Rat Man's identification with his dead father, which he saw as a crucial element in the structure of his neurosis.
Detailed Description: The Wolf Man came to Freud as a young adult, suffering from depression, anxiety, and a range of psychosomatic symptoms. He had a history of animal phobias in childhood and was plagued by a recurring dream that he had first experienced around the age of four.
The Wolf Dream: In the dream, he was lying in bed when the window suddenly opened, revealing six or seven white wolves perched in a walnut tree outside his window, staring at him intently. He awoke in terror, screaming.
The Primal Scene: Freud interpreted the dream as a distorted memory of the Wolf Man witnessing his parents having sex (the "primal scene") when he was very young. He connected the wolves to his parents, the whiteness of the wolves to the bed linens or his parents' undergarments, and the stillness of the wolves to the perceived motionlessness of his parents during intercourse as observed from his perspective. He theorized that he witnessed this scene at age one and a half, although he did not report remembering the event.
Deferred Action (Nachträglichkeit): Freud believed that the primal scene had not been fully understood or processed at the time it occurred. Its traumatic impact was deferred, becoming significant only later when it was reactivated by other events, such as the onset of his animal phobia and the development of his neurosis in adulthood.
Early Childhood History: The analysis delved deeply into the Wolf Man's early childhood, exploring his relationships with his parents, his sister (who later died by suicide), and his nanny. Freud uncovered a complex web of early experiences, including seduction by his sister, threats of castration by his nanny, and a close but ambivalent relationship with his father. He also suffered from obsessive religiosity, and then a period of atheism.
Analysis as a Search for Origins: The analysis of the Wolf Man became a kind of quest to uncover the foundational traumatic events that had shaped his psychologicåal development.
Influence: Emphasized early childhood trauma, popularized the primal scene, introduced deferred action, explored infantile sexuality, and fueled the debate about the nature of memory and the methodology of psychoanalysis.
Lacan's View: Lacan engaged with the Wolf Man case throughout his work. He was particularly interested in the Wolf Man's dream and its relationship to the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary. Lacan questioned Freud's emphasis on the primal scene as a literal event, suggesting that it was more important as a phantasy that structured the Wolf Man's relationship to desire and the Other. The dream, for Lacan, was not simply a distorted memory but a symbolic construction that revealed the Wolf Man's subjective truth. Lacan focused on the "gaze" of the wolves in the dream, interpreting it as a manifestation of the gaze of the Other, the object a. The gaze represents a point of trauma and fascination, a point where the subject's sense of self is both constituted and threatened. The Wolf Man is a case that seems to defy diagnosis, which Lacan uses to demonstrate the limitations of a diagnostic approach to psychoanalysis.
These case studies represent a crucial part of the history of psychoanalysis. While Freud's methods and interpretations have been subject to much criticism and debate, his work remains influential. Lacan's reinterpretation of these cases through the lens of structuralism and post-structuralism adds another layer of complexity and offers new ways of understanding the human subject and the nature of psychological suffering. His concepts, such as the objet a, the Name-of-the-Father, the mirror stage, and the registers of the Real, Symbolic and Imaginary were used to re-examine these cases. These cases are valuable not only for their historical significance but also for the ongoing theoretical discussions they inspire. They continue to be relevant for anyone interested in psychoanalysis, psychology, and the broader field of human self-reflection. They help to illustrate how psychoanalytic theory is not static, but a dynamic and evolving field of inquiry.