Freud`s case and his treatment of a small child with a phobia, The Little Hans Case

The reason of why the patient was being seen

Little Hans had a fear (phobia ) of horses which made life difficult in these Victorian times as horses and carriages were the norm for transport . Initial reports about Hans came directly from his family mostly his father , who reported that at age 3 Hans had cultivated a deep interest in his "widdler (i .e , his penis . Further , this interest by Hans had extended to the "widdlers " that other people were assumed to have . On one occasion he even asked his mother .do you have

a widdler too " At this time his dreams and fantasies seemed to have widdlers and widdling as dominant themes . At age 31 /2 Hans was told by his mother not to touch his widdler , or she would call the doctor to come around to cut it off . At this time , his mother also birthed his sister Hanna . Further , his mother sometimes threatened to leave the family for good . It appears that Hans was incredibly jealous of his sibling at first . Although his feelings of jealousy appeared to wane after a few months . Hans had also developed a significant interest in other children , especially girls it seems . He began to form emotional attachments to them . At around age 5 Han 's father was concerned enough to make contact with Freud . The the father gave of Hans was that the dominant problem was that : `He is afraid a horse will bite him in the street , and this fear seems somehow connected with his having been frightened by a large penis . In his letter to Freud the father detailed conversations he had had with Hans

A summary of the work with patient

Freud used a case study method to evaluate Little Han 's phobia . However the initial study observations were carried out by Han 's father . As the record of work Freud undertook with Little Hans is retrospective , it is not clear if Freud ever actually met with Hans more than once . Freud corresponded with the father to gain information about the case and to provide instruction as to how to proceed . Throughout the case Freud leveraged the special relationship that Hans had with his father , as this provided a medium for detailed disclosures and discussions about thoughts and behaviors intimate to the child

The dynamics of the problem

Freud inquired to Hans about his phobia of horses , which Hans referred to as "nonsense . Hans

pointed out that he did not like horses that had "black bits around their mouth . From this Freud concluded that the horse actually symbolized Han 's father and the black bits on a horses ' mouth corresponded to his father 's moustache . Following the interview , the father made a record of a conversation he had with his son where Hans said : `Daddy don 't trot away from me

It appears he became quite frightened also about horses falling over and had described to his father a day when he had seen this happen (his mother...