From the History of an Infantile Neurosis

WOLFMAN

INTRODUCTION1

•The twenty-three-year-old Dr. Sergueï Pankejeff, alias the Wolf Man, first consulted Freud in the beginning of February, 1910. •Pankejeff was born to a wealthy family from St. Petersburg. • His mother suffered from abdominal disorders, as a consequence, she had little to do with her children and father suffered from depression attacks, which led to his absence from home.• He had a sister who was 2 years older than him, who later would play an important part in his life. •He was looked after an uneducated old peasant woman Grushna, who he called, “Nanya”.

WOLFMAN

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RY•During summers, his parents would move to their other estate and he would stay behind with his nurse. One summer, his sister was left with him. When the parents returned, he had transformed into an irritable, discontented and violent child.

•He began screaming like a lunatic, whenever he caught sight of a book, in which a wolf was represented, in an upright standing position.

• He also became scared of other big and small animals which included caterpillars, beetles, butterflies, horses. At the same time, he developed a cruelty towards animals and enjoyed beating or cutting them.

EARL

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RY • His mother acquainted him with the Bible stories, in order to elevate him. These were read out to him by his mother and also Nanya, who herself was very pious.

• He also longed to be very pious, performing certain rituals like praying every night and kissing all the holy pictures that hung in the room. However, he had blasphemous thoughts about God and the Holy Trinity, attributing horse dung, swine and excrements on the ground to them.

•On seeing beggars, old men and others he felt sorry for, in order to not become like them, he would start breathing nosily. However, this had begun in his sixth year, when he had visited his father when he was terminally ill and felt sorry for him.

•His initial relation with his father was very cordial and aspired to be like him. Towards the end of his childhood, his father developed a preference for his daughter which led to an estrangement between the two.

EARL

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RY•At the age of about three and a quarter years, his sister seduced him into sexual practices. The scenes with his sister had taken place during the same summer his behaviour changed.

•During his childhood he competed with his sister for the good opinion of the parents and felt oppressed by her merciless display of superiority over him.

• From his fourteenth year onwards, the common opposition of the parents, brought them close enough to become best friends. During his puberty he attempted at an intimate physical approach, however, she rejected him.

•During her twenties she began to complain she was not good looking and withdrew from society. She was sent on travel with an elderly lady. However, on her second journey in 1906, she poisoned herself and died far away from home.

• When the news of his sister arrived, he felt no sorrow, stating he quietly rejoiced in the fact he was now the sole heir to the property.

• His father committed suicide in 1907 by consuming an excess of sleeping medication, a few months after Sergei had left for Munich to seek treatment for his own ailment as he was showing signs of depression.

"I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying in bed. (My bed stood with its foot towards the window; in front of the window there was a row of old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I had the dream, and night-time.) Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up. My nurse hurried to my bed, to see what had happened to me. It took quite a long while before I was convinced that it had only been a dream; I had had such a clear and life-like picture of the window opening and the wolves sitting on the tree. At last I grew quieter, felt as though I had escaped from some danger, and went to sleep again"

The Dream

2 SYMPTOMS

SYM

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Symptoms

• Neurotic breakdown

•Panic attack

• Wolf phobia

• Several Obsessional neurosis

• Depression

• Disturbance in the intestinal function, only to be relieved by enema

• Sadomasochistic tendencies

•He also felt like there was a veil cutting him off from the world

3 TREATMENT PLAN

TREA

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AN

Freud used several techniques:

• Dream analysis•Free association•Analysis of his identification with fairytales such as the “Reynard the fox”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, “The Seven little Goats” and the story of the tailless wolf as told by his grandfather•Reconstruction of the primal scene

DIAGNOSIS4

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S•Freud diagnosed him as having Infantile neurosis.

•The dream brought about the unconscious memory of his parent’s coitus a tergo (vaginal penetration from behind), where he was able to see his parent’s genitals. •Freud argued that the wolves in the dream were connected to certain childhood stories which had the theme of castration. Based on this he said, this dream was the first most significant event that brought forward the fear of his father which dominated the rest of his life. •As his father had been the object of his sexual satisfaction, the dream signified the wish he longed from his father, the result being the horror of the wish being fulfilled and the repression of the impulse.

•His intestinal disorder was an identification with his mother, who lamented about her health to her doctor, he became nervous of his own health

DIA

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S•Under the influence of the primal scene, he had concluded that his mother had became ill by what his father did to her. His identification with his mother or having experience the same symptoms as her, meant that he was in her place during the sexual scene.

•Freud, presumed that during the dream state, the patient had understood that the women are castrated, and this wound is necessary for the condition of femininity. Since, the sexual intercourse could take place in the anus, with the fear of castration, the bowels admittedly involved a contradiction.

•Thus, the organ by which he identified himself with women was able to express itself in the anal zone. He was making use of the content of the intestine in one of the most primitive meaning.

•Later in the paper Freud posited the possibility that Pankejeff had instead witnessed copulation between animals, which was displaced to his parents

5 CONCLUSION

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N• Freud published the case in 1918 where he claimed to have cured Pankejev completely, freeing him of all of his fears and obsessions, however, the status of his cure is debatable. For nearly 70 years, Pankejev was in and out of analysis with Freud and his followers with his condition worsening, until Freud's death

• Pankejeff's dream played a major role in Freud's theory of psychosexual

development, it was one of the most important dreams for the developments

of Freud's theories

• Additionally, Pankejeff became the main case used by Freud to prove the

validity of psychoanalysis

•It was the first detailed case study not involving Freud analyzing himself. This

brought together the main aspects of catharsis, the unconscious, sexuality, and

dream analysis put forward by Freud in his Studies on Hysteria (1895), The

Interpretation of Dreams (1899), and his Three Essays on the Theory of

Sexuality.

Thank You