Freud: Procedure and results

Freud: Procedure and results

1. Research method: case study

   • Hans' father carried out the case study. Freud said that it was the special relationship between Hans and his father that allowed the analysis to progress and allowed the results to be so detailed
   • His father wrote down every conversation that he had with Hans about his dreams and fantasies who then reported it to Freud via letters and Freud then interpreted it. After that Freud would then give directions as how to deal with the situation based on the interpretations

2. Results

   • Little Hans and his 'widdler'
     • At 3 years old he developed an active interest in his 'widdler' and those of other people, we can see this when he asked his mother 'mummy have you got a widdler too?'
     • Throughout this time, his widdler was the main theme of his dreams and fantasies. When he was 3 years and 6 months old his mother found him with his hands on his penis and she told him not to touch it or she would call the doctor to come and cut it off
   • The fear of horses
     • Hans' father explained to Freud that the main problem was that Hans was afraid that a horse will bite him in the street, which became such a big fear as Hans was unable to leave the house because of it
     • Freud thought that the reason behind this was due to the events that occurred last summer when Hans had mentioned similar fears to his mother and she had let him sleep in her bed with her
     • He said that this caused Hans to feel intense sexual excitement towards his mother and this was demonstrated by attempts to seduce her
     • Hans' fear had developed just after he had had some anxiety dreams about losing his mother and around the same time that he had been warned not to touch his widdler. After he had had some therapy for his fear, Hans recalled an incident to his father when he had overheard a father and daughter talking and the father saying: 'don't put your hand to the white horse or it will bite you'
       • The words 'don't put your finger to' sound a lot like the warning that Hans' mother had given him about touching his widdler and Freud therefore came to the conclusion that the fear of being bitten by a horse stemmed from his fear of indulging his urges.
     • Freud said that Hans had a repressed longing for his mother and had focussed his libido on her
   • The Giraffe Dream
     • 'In the room there was a big giraffe and a crumpled one: and the big giraffe called out because I took the crumpled one away from it. Then it stopped calling out: and i sat on top of the crumpled one'
     • Freud said that this was a reworking if the morning exchanges in the parental bed because his father objected to Hans getting into his parents bed in the morning. He also believed that the long neck of the big giraffe symbolised the large adult penis however Hans rejected this idea
   • Horses and the father
     • It was at this point that Freud had his only meeting with Hans. Freud told Hans that his fear of horses was actually a fear of his father and the black bridles around the horses mouth and the blinkers in front of their eyes symbolised his fathers moustache and glasses
     • Hans said that he didn't like horses with the black bits around their mouths and after the interview his father recorded an exchange where Hans said 'daddy don't trot away from me'
     • Hans became especially frightened about horses falling over and he described an incident to his father where he has witnessed this happening . His father asked leading questions to try and discover the root of his fear for example: 'when the horse fell down did you think of your daddy?'