Freud (1909) Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy. Hans, a small boy four
years old, had developed a phobia of horses. His family lived opposite a busy
coaching inn, which meant that Hans was unhappy about leaving the house, because
he saw many horses as soon as he went out of the door. When he was first asked
about his fear Hans said that he was frightened that the horses would fall down and
make a noise with their feet. He was most frightened of horses, which were drawing
heavily laden carts and, in fact, Hans had seen a horse collapse and die in the street
one time when he was out with his nurse. It was pulling a horse-drawn bus carrying
many passengers and when the horse collapsed Hans had been frightened by the
sound of its hooves clattering against the cobbles of the road.
Freud interpreted Hans’ phobia as symptomatic of his Oedipus complex. He saw the
fact that Hans was reluctant to leave the house as indicating that he would rather stay
at home with his mother and he considered that the horses, being large and powerful,
symbolised his father. When the father, instructed by Freud, suggested to Hans that he
was actually frightened that the horse would bite him, Hans insisted at first that it was
because he was frightened about it making a noise with its feet but later accepted his
father’s suggestion. Freud considered that this represented a disguised form of
castration threat anxiety.