162

XV

A CONNECTION BETWEEN A SYMBOL
AND A SYMPTOM ¹

(1916)

THE hat has been adequately established as a
symbol of the genital organ, most frequently
the male, through analyses of dreams. It
cannot be said, however, that this symbol is at all an
intelligible one. In phantasies and in numerous
symptoms the head also appears as a symbol of the
male genitals, or, if one prefers to put it so, as a repre-
sentation of them. Many analysts will have noticed
that certain patients suffering from obsessions express
an abhorrence of and indignation against the penalty
of beheading, feelings which are far more pronounced
as regards this than any other form of capital punish-
ment, and will in consequence have had to explain to
them that they treat being beheaded as a substitute
for being castrated. Dreams of young people or
dreams occurring during the period of youth which
concern the subject of castration, and in which there
was mention of a ball which could only be interpreted
as the head of the dreamer’s father, have been often
analysed and frequently published. I have recently
been able to solve a ceremonial carried out by a patient
before going to sleep, which consisted in laying a small
pillow diamond-wise on a larger one so that the
sleeper’s head would rest exactly in the long diameter
of the diamond. The diamond had the meaning that
is familiar to us from drawings on walls, the head was
to represent the male organ.

¹⁾First published in Zeitschrift, Bd. IV., 1916; reprinted in Samm-
lung, Vierte Folge. [Translated by Douglas Bryan.]

163

It may be that the symbolic meaning of the hat is
derived from that of the head, in so far as the hat can
be considered as a continuation of the head, though
detachable. In this connection I call to mind a
symptom of obsessional neurotics by means of which
they manage to ensure themselves continual torment.
When they are in the street they are constantly watch-
ing to see whether some acquaintance will salute them
first, by taking off his hat, or whether he seems to wait
for their salute ; and they give up a number of their
acquaintances who they imagine no longer salute them
or do not return their salute properly. There is no
end to their perplexities on the point ; they find them
everywhere as their mood and fancy dictate. It makes
no difference to their behaviour when we tell them
what they all know already, that the salute by taking
off the hat signifies an abasement before the saluted
person, that a Spanish grandee, for example, enjoyed
the privilege of being in the presence of the king with
his head covered, and that their sensitiveness to saluting
has therefore the meaning of not being willing to show
themselves as of less importance than the other person
thinks himself to be. The resistance of their sensi-
tiveness to such an explanation suggests the activity
of a motive less present to consciousness, and the
source of this excess of feeling can easily be found in
relation to the castration complex.