If you have been following our latest posts, you have read about some of the most famous cases interpreted by Sigmund Freud. Each of them is usually described and discussed in some book or treatise written by the psychoanalyst. The original works are easily found for purchase in bookstores and bookstores, but we thought it would be interesting to bring you shorter articles explaining each one in general terms.So, get to know today the case of little Hans.

Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy (1909)

In the book Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy In this part of the text, you will discover the story behind the case analyzed by the psychoanalyst. You will also learn about important concepts discussed during the case study. This part of the text ends with an overview of what Freud concluded on the subject.

Little Hans

Hans was a three-year-old boy who was taken in by his father to be analyzed by Freud. According to his father, Hans had a phobia that we don't often see: he hated horses, and was afraid of being bitten by one or of falling out of the cars driven by the animal. Another problem that worried his father was a unusual affection directed toward the mother figure, described by him as a "sexual overexcitation .

Initially, little Hans became known to Freud through letters exchanged between the psychoanalyst and his father. This began when he was still very young, and it was not until he was five years old that the boy had the opportunity to meet Freud in person. In these personal encounters, the psychoanalyst found the boy to be astute, communicative, and very affectionate.

In collecting information about the boy, Freud identified that Hans also had a fear of the idea of the "big penis" associated with the horse. In addition to having these kinds of thoughts regarding the animal, Hans also wondered about his mother figure. Since she was also big, perhaps she could have a member similar to that of the horse, but he had no phobia of her. What couldwas going on in the boy's mind?

The concept of phobia

By now, we imagine that you are super confused by the story of little Hans. What could his phobia of horses have to do with the animal's penis and his abnormal attachment to his mother? Really, it all seems very disconnected. However, if you know the main elements of Freud's psychoanalytic theory, it is possible to link one thing to another more easily. We will make this discussion further below.

But, before that, let's start our explanation from the Freudian concept of phobia. For the father of Psychoanalysis, phobia has as main elements fear and anguish. Until then, these are feelings widely known by people. However, beyond that, its occurrence is due to a repressing that comes from the formation of symbols recognized by a patient after a traumatic event. Hereit gets a little more complicated, doesn't it?

Let's talk in easier language: A person's phobia manifests itself in an element or individual in which that person releases the anguish caused by a trauma. In the case of little Hans The anguish caused by some trauma was directed at the horses.

Freud's analysis

You may not know this yet, but Freud's study of the little Hans Furthermore, the case was not only discussed because of its relevance for the description of echinophobia (phobia of horses), but to understand how psychoanalysis deals with phobias in general. However, to understand this concept, it is important to know several others.

With this in mind, we decided to explain the Freudian analysis of the case as we go along, explaining psychoanalytic concepts in more detail. Check it out!

Elements of psychoanalytic analysis in the story of Little Hans

Sexuality

Do you remember that there was a certain sexual element in Hans' story? Sexuality is a central theme for psychoanalysis and, in this case, also bears a relation to the emergence of phobia Like it or not, a lot of Freud's explanations end up going back to the notion of the Oedipus Complex. In the case of Little Hans, we see an explanation that is based entirely on the way Hans went through this experience.

In the Oedipus Complex, the child develops a libidinous feeling towards the father or the mother, but faced with the impossibility of a sexual relationship between them, the child ends up repressing the feeling. This repressing movement is made by the ego, a kind of mental mechanism that prevents this now unconscious passion from returning to the field of consciousness again.

Thus, ideally, the child's passion for one of its parents is trapped in the realm of the unconscious and would only become accessible through dreams or neuroses. However, what happened to little Hans was that he shifted his libido to an object other than the father, instead of repressing it. According to Freud, this feeling is responsible for the formation of the phobia The child needed to release the anxiety.

Childhood

In this case, childhood is a very important field of study because in the theory, this is the place of both the Oedipus complex and the repressing of the libido. However, with Hans this process of repressing was impaired. By displacing the libido from the father, Hans began to present a hostility toward his parent. This is where the strong attachment that the boy felt toward his mother came in,This feeling was noted by his father with strangeness.

Hysteria

Finally, it is worth recalling here the concept of hysteria as it was understood by Freud. Above we said that the libido repressed in the unconscious is only available to the individual in two ways. On the one hand, it is possible to access the unconscious through dreams.

On the other hand, there is the possibility of recovering elements of the unconscious when the person presents neurosis. Hysteria is a concept that can be framed in this context. According to Freud, little Hans was a hysterical child, so it becomes clearer why he was able to access what should have been repressed.

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Final considerations about little Hans

We are aware that everything we have said here can scare a lot of people. It is not simple to associate a topic full of taboos such as sexuality to a 5 year old boy. However, as we said, this type of analysis permeates Freud's discussions and many treatments were successful based on what he advocated. If you have any doubts about the case of little Hans or about sexuality, enroll in our online Psychoanalysis course!