Summary of 'Story of a Childhood Neurosis ('Wolf Man')' (Chapters IV and VII) by Freud, Resúmenes de Psicoanálisis

¡Descarga Summary of 'Story of a Childhood Neurosis ('Wolf Man')' (Chapters IV and VII) by Freud y más Resúmenes en PDF de Psicoanálisis solo en Docsity! 1 Made by MatyBuda STORY OF A CHILDHOOD NEUROSIS ("WOLF MAN") (CHAP. IV AND VII) (29-46, 74-5) Sigmund Freud (1918) Summary: IV. THE DREAM AND THE PRIMORDIAL SCENE We have already published this dream elsewhere because of its richness in elements taken from traditional tales, and I will repeat what was communicated there: "I dreamed at night and was in my bed. My bed was facing the window, and in front of the window was a row of old walnut trees. It was winter when I dreamed, and it was night. Suddenly, the window opens by itself, and I see with great terror that on the large walnut tree in front of the window are sitting several white wolves. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were completely white and looked more like foxes or sheepdogs, with large tails like foxes and stiff ears like dogs on alert. Filled with anguish, clearly afraid of being eaten by wolves, I begin to scream and wake up. My nanny runs to my bed to find out what had happened to me. It took me a long time to convince myself that it had only been a dream, because the image of the window opening and the wolves sitting on the tree seemed so natural and vivid to me. Finally, I calmed down, felt reli eved of danger, and went back to sleep. "In the dream, the only action was the opening of the window, since the wolves were completely still and did not move in the branches of the tree, to the right and left of the trunk, looking at me. It seemed as if they had directed all their attentio n to me. I think this was my first anxiety dream. I was three, four, at most five years old. From then until I was eleven or twelve years old, I was always afraid of seeing something terrible in my dreams." "He also drew a picture of the tree with the wolves, confirming his description [Figure 1]. The analysis of the dream brings to light the following material. He always related this dream to the memory that in those early years of his childhood he showed in tense anxiety at the image of a wolf that appeared in a book of traditional stories. His elder sister, who was much more advanced, used to tease him by showing him this picture under any pretext, after which he would start screaming in terror. The image sh owed the wolf standing upright, advancing with one of its hind legs extended, claws out, and stiff ears. He believes he recognized thi s image as an illustration from the story 'Little Red Riding Hood.'" In this analysis, he wonders why the wolves in the dream are white, leading the patient to remember the plague among the sheep near his home. It relates to a story you heard about a tailor who confronts a wolf and strips it of its tail. The story involves castration, reflected in the absence of tails in the wolves of the dream. The question of why there are six or seven wolves is solved by linking the dream to the traditional tales of Little Red Ridin g Hood and The Wolf and the Seven Goats. Both stories share elements such as devouring and the tree. The dream reveals a genuine zoophobia related to these tales, generated by childhood anguish towards the father figure. The explanation of these phobias is linked to the neurosis of the patient and his relationship with the father. Anguish in front of the father drove her illness, and her ambivalent attitude towards him marked her life and her treatment. This analysis suggests that the wolf in the stories represents the child's fear of the father, especially considering the patient's father's interactions with him during his childhood. In our analysis, we move away from the initial assessment of the dream to focus on its immediate interpretation. Obtaining th is interpretation was a process that spanned several years. From the beginning of the treatment, the patient shared the dream, and quickly accepted that it was related to the cause of his infantile neurosis. Throughout the treatment, we review the dream several 2 Made by MatyBuda times, but only at the end of the therapeutic process do we manage to fully understand it, thanks to the spontaneous work of the patient. The most remarkable aspect of sleep for the patient was the total rest and immobility of the wolves, as well as the tense attention with which they looked at him. In addition, he highlighted the sense of reality that persisted after the dream. This feeling of reality in dreams indicates that there is something in the latent dream material that claims to be remembered as a genuine experience, not just fantasized. We believe that the latent content of the dream refers to a scene that actually occurred in the patient's childhood but had been forgotten. This scene must have taken place at an incredibly youthful age, as indicated by the patient when he mentioned that he was between three and five years old at the time. Details of the dream, such as the intense gaze and immobility of the wolves , suggest that this forgotten scene may have been related to a traumatic sexual experience. From the analysis sessions, we were able to draw several important conclusions. The reference to sheep breeding indicated ear ly sexual exploration by the patient, but it also revealed signs of castration distress, which seemed to be the driving force of his neurosis. However, here we stop at the narrative of analysis. We fear losing the reader's credibility if we continue. From now on, we will devote a careful examination to these and other objections. We assure the reader that our attitude towards the hypothesis of the child's observation is no less critical than his own, but we ask him to provisionally accept the reality of that scene. We will continue to study the links of this "primordial scene" with the patient's dream, symptoms, and biography. We will investigate the separate effects that arose from both the essential content of the scene and one of its visual impressions. We refer specifically to the positions that the child saw his parents adopt: the upright position of the man and the crouchin g position of the woman, similar to that of animals. During his treatment, the patient persisted in searching for a book of sto ries from his childhood that had been a source of distress, finding an illustration that he associated with the primordial scene we constructed. This image became the starting point for more distressing effects, such as a later dream where a teacher was transformed into a lion approaching him, reminiscent of the wolf's position in the illustration. During his high school education, the patient had an experience with a Latin teacher named Wolf, whose name in German means "wolf." This figure triggered intense anguish that spread to other teachers, reflecting the persistent paternal influence in his life. In addition, the patient revealed an initial symptom related to his phobia of the wolf and the tale of the seven goats during treatment sessions, when he showed special attention to a wall clock in the therapy room. This behavior, as he later recalled, was linked to the story where the youngest of the goats hid in the case of the watch to avoid the wolf, thus expressing his desire for safety and protection during the sessions. We will continue to examine the links between the dream and the primordial scene. The wolf the boy feared undoubtedly represented the father, but his anxiety was specifically linked to the upright position. The patient's recollection confirmed that he had not been terrified by images of the wolf walking on all fours or lying down, as in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, but by the upright position he associated with the father figure. In his adult life, the patient experienced attacks of compulsive sensual infatuation, triggered in enigmatic sequences and beyond his conscious control. These episodes, intensely energized, though inhibited in other aspects of his life, were linked to a h idden condition that could only be discerned in the course of treatment. This predilection for certain female physical characteristics and for certain types of sexual relations reflected aspects of her early psychic development, especially linked to the position she attributed to the mother in the primordial scene. The analysis also revealed how the content of the primordial scene migrated and transformed into the story of the wolf and th en the tale of the seven kids in the patient's dream. This migration of material reflected the progress of the child's thinking, from sexual satisfaction by the father to the comprehension conditioned by castration and distress before the father. The primordi al scene had a pathogenic effect on the patient's sexual development, causing a fragmentation of libido and lasting effects that were activated later in life. As we progress in our exploration, we may find more evidence that this scene had effects from an early age, possibly from the first years of the patient's life. When delving deeper into the primordial scene, self-perceptions reveal a recognition of the satisfaction hidden in what initially seemed like a violent act. The observation of the sexual trade between parents confronts the reality of castration, a concept that had already occupied their minds. The vision of past events, such as the injury caused by the mother, leads to an understandi ng of their role in the relationship with the father. The anguish resulting from the dream triggers an internal struggle, where the desire