The Oedipus Complex and critiquing the validity of Little Hans
This article is the first of two which will take an indepth look at the Oedipus Complex and how it has been illustated with the case of Little Hans.
A brief overview of the Oedipus Complex will be provided, followed by a cross-disciplinary interpretation of the case of Little Hans before concluding with a critique of the case with particular emphasis on its representative validity.
Oedipus Complex
In a brief overview firstly, an oedipal situation embodies vast intricacies of a relationship between a subject and their involvement with the parental figures, as the child is negotiating their sexual development. In Freud’s classical theory, this dynamic can be described as when a child (most regularly with but not exclusive to the example of a boy) develops an object-cathexis to their primary mother-figure, yet to the father figure a process of identification is formed initially (Freud 1923). However, as the anaclitic mother-cathexis intensifies the father identification develops to an ambivalence of hostility and fondness in response, as the father is now perceived as the force which prohibits the child from enjoying their sexual wishes with the mother.
How the child negotiates their Oedipus Complex will have implications for their future development of the individual and in analytic terms, "their clinic picture". For example, one affordance of is modifying the child’s ego to instantiate a super-ego. For this process, a child must symbolically identify with the father-figure and accept their prohibition. In this way the ego is modified and confronts the original object choices of the id.
By internalising the father’s prohibition of incestuous desire, the super-ego takes on a characteristic of the authority that is divorced from the need of an external source ( i.e. replacing the object-relation to the father) while simultaneously repressing the Oedipal Complex by functioning as a reaction formation against the infantile incest desire for the mother-object. (Freud, 1923; Verhaeghe, 2008).
Thus successful repression of the Oedipus Complex has direct influence establishing the neurotic character of the individual and interrupting the libidinal development by onsetting the latency period of sexual life.
Castration
Freud (1924/1961) stated that the onset of the Oedipus complex is contemporaneous with the phallic phase or genital phase of childhood sexual development. In the case of males, the onset for gradual destruction of that phallic genital organisation is argued by Freud (1924/1961) to begin with threat of castration.
The characteristic of these pre-latent sexual developmental phases are evident in the case Little Hans, such as having little resistance to carrying out his sexual wishes characteristic of the polymorphous disposition. Additionally, Hans' preoccupation with his ‘widdler’ and the pleasure derives from second phase infantile masturbation, which led to a literal threat of castration from his Mother (Freud 1905/1953; Freud 1909).
The assumption of all living creatures having a penis is an important factor of the child’s sexual theories (Freud 1905/1953) thus; it not having one is inconceivable to the male child (Freud 1924). For Hans, the sight of females not having widdlers to a lesser or greater extent reified a distressing truth in the threat of castration; from a threat to a promise (Freud, 1909).
Here the 'complex' status of Oedipus Complex is more salient; conflict arises between choosing the libidinally cathected parent object or the narcissistic interest in the genital organ. The former choice in satisfying the love object is at the cost of their organ (Freud, 1924/1961), thus the successful resolution is 'normally' to choose the sparing of the precious body part and turn away from the Oedipus Complex.
Egocentrism
Grossman (2015) highlights how Hans' oedipal phase mentation (his developmentally appropriate vulnerabilities and cognitive capacities) may have contributed to shaping his phobia as it partially dictates a vulnerability to anxiety hysteria.
This interpretation is based on the assumptions characteristic at oedipal-age thought and cognitions. This refers to Hans' ability to grok cause and effect, in addition to his unsuccessful repression of sexual and aggressive urges. This interpretation also includes consideration to Piaget’s egocentricity, which considers how a child might construe significant events as caused by their own doing.
Grossman (2015) further suggests that oedipal-aged (egocentric) children are not prone to believing in accidents let alone to accept themselves as innocent bystanders. Grossman further applies this logic to Hans’s cause in his own pathogensis.
For example, Hans’s phobia intensified after his tonsillectomy; while his father openly interpreted that his phobia increased because his tonsil sickness prevented Hans from going for walks with his mother, Hans rebuttals that his illness is bad because he still put his hand on his widdler ever night (Freud, 1909).
This cognitive structure, and its characteristic of inferring other people’s motives as identical to his own, demonstrates an age appropriate behaviour in the pre-latency child. Hans insists that his wish for his father to fall and be hurt is because Hans misattributes his father as being cross as Hans sees himself to be (Grossman, 2015).
Freud (1923) suggested that a child can only having vague notions of what a satisfying sexual relationship with a parent would constitute, yet his inference of the penis having a role in the intercourse would be based on the excitation of their own organ. This may be illustrative of age appropriate egocentric mentation (Grossman, 2015) but could also inform Hans' reasoning as to why his mother had a widdler.
Critique
The case of Little Hans may be seen as confirmation to Freud’s hypotheses concerning the development of infantile sexuality, which was elaborated upon in his 'Three Essays' (1905) four years prior to the publication of the case.
However, it is difficult to attest just how the case of Little Hans actually gave validity to the existence of an Oedipal Complex as Freud’s significant writings on the OC followed the case chronologically. While those later writings (Freud, 1923; Freud, 1924) did expand on the theory, they tend to heavily rely on overt specificities of Han’s case rather than other examples to bolster a generalisable theory.
However, Freud (1923) did state that for practical purposes, a simplification and schematization of the theory can be necessary as a “simple Oedipus Complex” is not the most common form. By this he was referring to a ‘complete complex’ which are inherently twofold; having positive and negative aspects, yet also considers the dysphasic and bisexual aspects of both male and female children in addition to their attitudes to both parents.
In hindsight, to highlight the convolution of Hans' case is pertinent in addition to illustrating the pathogenesis rooted in positive Oedipus Complex and some general inconsistencies; Freud emphasised constitutional endowment to pathology, yet in light of subsequent publications, it is now evident that for this case he over-emphasised that Hans was a normal healthy child in which to eschew and underplay the biological and environmental endowment that contributed to Hans anxiety (Fingert Chused, 2007; Lachmann, 2010)
Critique: the role of Hans’s mother.
Blum (2007) argues that it is possible the traumatic past of the mother is purposely omitted in Freud’s formulations of the Oedipus Complex in general; from this it is further implied that Olga Graf’s repeated object losses (from both her father and brother’s suicides) may have had traumatic biogenetic determinants for Hans’s own anxiety-neuroses.
Later interviews from Herbert Graf revealed that Hans' mother was prone to abandoning and rejecting both children however there is specific emphasis that the little sister Hanna had been beaten. When asked as a child, Han’s had also stated that he wished to beat horses and his mother in much the same way the latter beat his sister (Blum, 2007).
Had this knowledge not been excluded it might be have be instantiated to further explain Han’s unconscious wish to kill his sister, yet in doing so one could possibly risk capitulating validity to Bandura’s modelling theory of aggression rather than a strictly psychoanalytic inference of displacement.
Again, Hans' own emotional vacillation toward his father (i.e. head-butting and kissing) might be considered reminiscent of his own mother’s emotional lability. However, Freud’s (1909) addendum to the case does acknowledge that Han’s aggression might have been from an identification and displacement of his mother ambivalence shown to the children and her own husband. Mother-identification later became a fundamental part of the Oedipus Complex theory (Freud, 1923).
The addition of the mother in contemporary analysis might factor in the ‘overdetermination’ of the phobic object; for example, the row making horse, and threatening to ride away, to represent the mother who beat her daughter and reportedly threatened abandonment (Blum, 2007).
Kohut’s psychodynamic approach has distinguished between an Oedipal Phase and an Oedipal Complex; in the former a child’s parents do not respond with aggressively to the child’s romantic, sexual or aggressive feelings toward the child. While in the latter, a seductive or punitive response will eventuate an oedipally rooted pathology. From Hans’s case, the father not protecting his son from the mother’s disturbing influence would also contribute to shaping this oedipal pathology (Lachmann, 2010).
To be threatened with literal castration, yet being cuddled in bed when not being "rejected" is confusing to a young child. Theories have been put forward that Olga Graf permitting Hans into the bathroom as she urinated is tantamount to exhibitionist behaviour, which Freud would later reprove of (Nunberg & Federn, 1967).
These acts coupled with her claim that she too had a widdler may have exacerbated Han’s confusion and scotomization of reality which is evident in his assumption that his mother’s widdler must be as big as horses and his assertion that Hanna also had a very small penis when no penis could be visible (Blum, 2007).
Again, these criticisms do not necessarily negate Freud or Max Graf’s original interpretation of the neurosis eitiology, but might compliment it by emphasising the then understated role of the mother in the castration anxiety and phobia
This concludes the discussion first article on the the Oedipus Complex.
In the following article, we will be looking at Jacques Lacan’s reading of Freud’s Oedipus Complex and how it is conducive to structuring the Neurotic personality. This can be read by clicking here.
References
Blum, H. P. (2007). Little Hans: a contemporary overview. The Psychoanalytic study of the child, 62(1), 44-60.
References
Fingert Chused, J. (2007). Little Hans “analyzed” in the twenty-first century. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 55(3), 767-778.
Freud, S. (1961). The dissolution of the Oedipus complex. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIX (1923-1925): The Ego and the Id and Other Works (pp. 171-180).
Freud, S. (1909). The case of “little Hans” and the “rat man”. Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, 10, 1953-1974.
Freud, S. (1953). Three essays on the theory of sexuality (1905). In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works (pp. 123-246).
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. In J. Strachey et al. (Trans.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIX. London: Hogarth Press.
Grossman, L. (2015). The Syntax of Oedipal Thought in the Case of Little Hans. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 84(2), 469-478.
Lachmann, F. (2010). Addendum; afterthoughts on Little Hans and the universality of the Oedipus complex. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 30(6), 557-562.
Nunberg, H., & Federn, E. (1967). Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Vol. 2. New York: Internal Universities Press. 1906-1908.
Verhaeghe, P. (2008). On being normal and other disorders: A manual for clinical psychodiagnostics. Routledge.
