Little Hans - Ross and Martin
Little Hans
Little Hans was a case study involving a 5 year old child in 1909 undertaken by Sigmund Freud. The study involved dream analysis. The study was carried out by Han’s father who was friends with Freud sending letters about his son and to see if his various dreams and behaviour was normal for a child of his age. Freud in fact only met Han’s on a couple of occasions.
Freud was informed that Hans had an obsession with his penis, he dreamt about it and wiping children’s bottoms. This would suggest that Hans was fixated in the anal stage. Hans denied interest and said it was only in his dreams. Due to Hans stating that it was all in dreams suggests that he has repressed the desires into his unconscious. On one occasion Hans was playing with his penis his mother warned him if he didn’t stop she would get the doctor to chop if off. Freud would argue that this would have led to castration anxiety.
Hans wanted his father to go away on business, after the family moved house the father was home a lot more and Hans had feelings of wanting his father dead. Hans was also jealous of his sister. The father informed Freud that Hans had a fear of drowning in the bath. Hans agreed with Freud’s theory that Hans wanted his sister to drown in the bath. Freud would suggest that Han’s wanted his mum and was jealous of his sister as she took away some of his mothers attention from him.
Hans also said that he was afraid that a white horse would bite him. He was especially afraid of white horses with black mouths and things in front of their eyes. This could suggest that Hans was using the defence mechanism of displacement and putting his fear of his father onto horses as his father has a black moustache and worse dark shades and this is how he related the horses to his father. This shows that Hans was going through the Oedipus complex and was afraid of his father. He also saw a horse collapse down when drawing a bus and this must have been a traumatic experience for Hans
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