A Further Consideration of Infantile Zoöphobia

Let us return to the infantile zoöphobias, for we understand them better than all of the others. Here the ego must intercede against a libidinous object investment of the It (that of the positive or negative Oedipus complex) because it has understood that to yield brings with it the danger of castration. This we have already discussed and still find occasion to clear up a doubt which remains from the first discussion. Are we to assume with little Hans (hence in the case of a positive Oedipus complex), that it is the tender emotion toward the mother, or the aggressive one against the father which produces the defense of the ego? Practically this seems indifferent, especially as the two promptings condition each other, but a theoretic interest associates itself in the question because only a tender current toward the mother can count as purely erotic. The aggressive is essentially dependent on the destructive impulse and we have always believed that in the neurosis the ego defends itself against the claims of the libido, not of the other impulses. We see in fact that in the formation of the phobia the tender mother association has vanished and is radically removed through repression, while the symptom (substitute) formation has completed itself with the aggressive prompting. In the case of the wolf man the matter is more simple, the repressed prompting is actually an erotic one, the feminine situation to the father, and with this completes itself in the symptom formation.

It is to be deplored that after so much work we find still further difficulties in the comprehension of the fundamental relations, but we have undertaken to simplify nothing and to conceal nothing. If we could not see clearly we would at least see keenly the obscurities. That which stands in our way here is evidently a lack of symmetry in the development of our knowledge of the impulses. First, we had the organization of the libido from the oral past, the sadistic-anal to the genital, and hereby ranked these components of the sex impulse equally. Later it appears to us that sadism is the representative of another, the impulse opposite to Eros. The new comprehension of the two groups of impulses seems to rupture the former construction of the successive phases of libido organization. But we do not need to discover anew the helpful information from these difficulties, for these have long been tendered us and mean that we hardly ever have to do with pure impulses but always with the alloys of both impulses in varying proportions. The sadistic object investment also has a claim to be treated as libidinous; the organization of the libido does not need to be revised, the aggressive prompting against the father can with the same claim be the object of repression as the tender one for the mother. In any case we place the material for later discussion of this possibility to one side, for repression is a process which has a particular relation to the genital organization of the libido. The ego grasps after other modes of defense when it must defend itself against the libido at other stages of organization, and we proceed. A case like that of little Hans permits us no decision; here an aggressive prompting is removed by repression but only after the genital organization has already been reached.

This time we will not allow the relation to fear to escape our attention. We said that as the ego recognizes the danger of castration it gives the fear signal and by means of the pleasure-pain principle inhibits in a manner not understood the threatening investment process in the It. Simultaneously the phobia formation is completed. The castration fear receives another object and a disguised expression (bitten by a horse, devoured by a wolf in place of being castrated by the father). The substitute formation has two manifest advantages, first, that it evades an ambivalent conflict, for the father is at the same time an object of love; and second, that it permits the ego to stop the development of fear. The fear in the phobia is especially a facultative one and appears only when its object is the subject of perception. This is entirely feasible, for only then is the fear situation at hand. From an absent father one need not fear even castration. Now when one cannot get the father out of the way the fear always shows itself and when it will. If the father is replaced by an animal, he needs only a glimpse, can keep out of the animal's way and thus be free from danger and fear. Little Hans contracted his ego and produced an inhibition; he would not go out in order not to see horses. The little Russian had it still more convenient. It was hardly any self denial for him to avoid taking up a certain picture-book. If his bad sister did not hold up before him this image of the wolf he could feel secure from this fear.

I have formerly ascribed to fear the character of a projection, as I replaced an internal prompting of danger by an external perceptive danger. This brings the advantage that man can protect himself against external danger by flight and by avoidance of the perception, while flight cannot protect from an internal danger. My observation was not faulty but it remains superficial. The impulse is not a danger in itself but only because it brings with it a true external danger, that of castration. So at the basis of a phobia one external danger is replaced by another. That the ego in a phobia can withdraw the fear by flight or inhibition agrees very well with the notion that fear is an affect signal only and that the economic situation is not really changed.

The fear in a zoöphobia is also an affective reaction of the ego to danger; the danger which is signalled being that of castration. There is no other difference from ordinary fear which the ego expresses in danger situations save that the content remains unknown and is made conscious only by disguising it.

The same comprehension will, I believe, hold good for the fears of adults even if the material which the neurosis elaborates is much more abundant and there are additional factors in symptom formation. At bottom it is the same thing. The agoraphobe lays a limitation on his ego in order to escape a danger from impulse. The danger lies in the temptation to yield to his erotic desires, as a result of which he again as in childhood, conjures up the fear of castration or something analogous. As an example I cite the case of a young man who became an agoraphobe because he feared he would yield to the attractions of prostitutes and catch syphilis as a punishment.

I well know that many cases show a complicated structure and that many others can empty repressed promptings into a phobia, but these are only auxiliary and have for the most part set themselves at a later period in association with the nucleus of the neurosis. The symptoms of agoraphobia become complicated thereby, so that the ego does not content itself with renouncing something; instead it adds something to deprive the situation of danger. This addendum is usually a regression into child years (in extreme cases into the uterus, into the time in which it was protected from the dangers which now menace it) and appears as a condition under which renunciation can be omitted. Hence the agoraphobe can walk the streets when, like a little child, he is accompanied by some one in whom he confides. The same regard may also permit him to go out alone when he does not exceed a certain distance from his home and does not go into neighborhoods which are unfamiliar to him and where he is unknown to people. In the choice of these determinants he shows the influence of infantile factors which dominate him through his neurosis. Quite unequivocal but without the element of infantile regression is the fear of being alone, which is founded on the fear that one will yield to the temptation of solitary onanism. The condition of infantile regression is naturally the chronological removal from childhood.

The phobia as a rule originates when under certain circumstances---on the street, on the railway, when alone---a first attack of fear is experienced. Fear is then banished but invariably asserts itself when conditions of protection cannot be controlled. The mechanism of the phobia does good service as a means of defense and shows a great inclination to stability. A continuation of the defensive fight, which is now directed against the symptom, often but not necessarily enters.

What we have learned about fears in connection with phobias remains of utility in the compulsive neuroses. It is not difficult to reduce the situation of the compulsive neurosis to that of a phobia. The motif of all later symptom formation is evidently the fear of the ego of its super-ego. The hostility of the super-ego is the danger situation from which the ego must withdraw itself. Here there is no sign of a projection, the danger is throughout interiorized. But if we ask ourselves what the ego fears from its super-ego, the notion is forced upon us that the punishment of the latter is a continuation of the castration punishment. As the super-ego is really the father who has been depersonalized, so the fear of the threatened castration by the father becomes transformed into indefinite social fears, of fear of conscience. But this fear is hidden, the ego withdraws itself from it while at the same time it carries out the commands, precautions and expiations laid upon it. When it is prevented there develops an extremely penible discomfort which to the patient is the equivalent of fear. Hence our result runs as follows: Fear is a reaction to the danger situation and is spared if the ego does something to avoid the situation or withdraw from it. One might say that the symptoms are created in order to avoid dangerous situations which are signalized by fear development. This danger in the cases hitherto discussed was the danger of castration or of something derived from it.

If fear is the reaction of the ego to danger, we come nearer to comprehending the traumatic neurosis which so often follows an experience with danger to life as a direct consequence of life-fear or death-fear with setting aside of the dependencies of the ego and of castration. This has happened in connection with most of the observers of traumatic neuroses during the last war, and it was triumphantly announced that now we have proofs that imperilling the impulse to self-preservation can cause a neurosis without any participation of sexuality and without regard to the complicated assumptions of psycho-analysis. It is, in fact, extremely unfortunate that there is not a single utilizable example of an analysis of a traumatic neurosis. Not because of the contradiction of the etiological significance of sexuality---for this has long ago been abolished by the introduction of narcism which brings the libidinous fixation of the ego in a series with the object investments and emphasizes the libidinous nature of self-preservation---but because through the absence of these analyses we have neglected a most valuable opportunity to draw decisive conclusions over the relation between fear and symptom formation. From all that we know of the structure of the simpler neuroses of daily life it is highly improbable that a neurosis can occur only through the objective fact of peril without participation of the deeper unconscious strata of the psychic apparatus. In the unconscious, moreover, there is nothing at hand which can give content to our conception of the destruction of life. Castration can be visualized through the daily experience of parting with the intestinal contents and through the loss of the maternal breast through weaning; but anything like death has never been experienced, or if so, like a swoon, has left no trace behind which could be demonstrated. Therefore I hold fast to the supposition that death-fear is to be comprehended as an analogue of castration fear and that the situation upon which the ego reacts is the abandonment by the protecting super-ego---the power of fate---whereby the assurance against all danger has an end. Besides, there comes into consideration that in the experiences which lead to traumatic neurosis external protection from irritation is broken through and over-large quantities of excitation appear in the psychic apparatus; so that the second possibility is present that not only does fear fail to signalize the affect but the situation is newly generated from the economic conditions.

Through the last remark that the ego through its regularly repeated loss of objects is prepared for castration, we have obtained a new conception of fear. Having regarded it hitherto as the affect signal of danger, it now appears to us often in connection with castration danger as the reaction to a loss, a separation. While many things may speak against this conclusion, as is at once apparent, a very noteworthy agreement must strike us. The first fear experience of mankind is birth, and this signifies objectively separation from the mother, which may be likened to castration of the mother (according to the equation child equals penis). Now it would be very gratifying if fear should be repeated at every subsequent separation as a symbol of separation; but unfortunately another valuation of this agreement stands in the way, for subjectively birth is not experienced as a separation from the mother, for to the narcistic fetus the mother is quite unknown as a separate object. Another consideration will be that the affect reaction to a separation is known and that we feel pain and grief but not anxiety or fear. Indeed, we recall that we have not understood why grief should be so painful.