59

VII

A Further Consideration of
Infantile Zoöphobia

LET us return to the infantile zoöphobias, since these
cases we understand better than any others. In these, we
have seen, the ego must intervene against a libidinal
object-
cathexis of the id (that of the positive or negative
œdipus complex, namely), because of the recognition that
to yield to it would entail the danger of castration. This
we have already discussed, yet we may still take occasion
to clarify a doubt which remains over from this first dis-
cussion. Shall we assume in the case of little Hans (and
thus in the case of the positive œdipus complex) that it
is the tender impulse towards the mother, or the aggres-
sive towards the father, which provokes measures of de-
fense on the part of the ego? Practically speaking, it would
seem to be a matter of indifference, particularly since
each of the two impulses predicates the other; but a
theoretical interest attaches to the question, because only
the tender impulse towards the mother can be deemed a
purely erotic one. The aggressive impulse is essentially
dependent upon the instinct of destruction, and we have
always believed that in neurosis it is against the demands
of the libido, not against those of other instincts, that the
ego defends itself. As a matter of fact, we see that after
the formation of the phobia the tender bond with the
mother is as though dissolved, it is disposed of in thor-
oughgoing fashion through repression, while symptom

60

formation has taken place as a sub-
sive impulse. In the case of the “wolf man” the matter
is simpler; the repressed impulse is really an erotic one,
namely, the feminine attitude to the father, and it is
around this impulse that symp-
tom formation has taken
place.

It is almost disgraceful that after so much labor we
should still find difficulty in conceiving of the most funda-
mental matters, but it has been our resolve to simplify
nothing and to conceal nothing. If we cannot see clearly,
at least we see the obscurities clearly. What stands in our
way is evidently due to the fact that our theory of in-
stincts has developed unevenly. In the beginning we had
followed the various organizations of the libido from the
oral through the anal-sadistic to the genital stage, and in
so doing had equated the several components of the sex-
ual instinct with one another. Subsequently sadism ap-
peared to us to be the representative of another instinct,
one opposed to Eros. This new concept of the two classes
of instincts seems to disrupt the earlier formulation of
the occurrence of successive stages in the organization
of the libido. A helpful way out of this difficulty we do not
have to invent; it has long been ready to hand, and is to
the effect that we scarcely ever have to do with instinctual
impulses in pure form, but invariably with alloys of the
two instincts in which these are present in varying pro-
portions. The sadistic object-cathexis is entitled as well,
therefore, to be treated as a libidinal one; the hypothesis
of stages of organization of the libido does not need to
be revised; the aggressive impulse towards the father is
as much entitled to be the object of repression as the
tender impulse towards the mother. At all events we will

61

put to one side for later consideration the possibility that
repression is a process which has a special relationship to
the genital organization of the libido, and that the ego
seizes upon other methods of defense when it has to de-
fend itself against the libido at other stages of its organiza-
tion. A case like that of little Hans does not permit of
any decision on this matter; here an aggressive impulse
was dealt with through repression, but only after the
genital stage had already been reached.
We do not want to lose sight at this point of the place
that anxiety occupies. We have said that as soon as the
ego has recognized the danger of castration, it gives the
signal of anxiety, and through the medium of the pleas-
ure-pain mechanism it inhibits, in a manner still obscure
to us, the threatening cathectic process in the id. Simul-
taneously with this the formation of the phobia is accom-
plished. The castration anxiety is given another object
and a distorted expression–namely, that of being bitten
by a horse (or eaten by a wolf) instead of being castrated
by the father. This substitute formation has two patent
advantages: first, that it avoids the conflict due to am-
bivalence, for the father is an object who is at the same
time loved; and secondly, that it allows the ego to prevent
any further development of anxiety. For the anxiety of
the phobia is a facultative anxiety: it makes its appear-
ance only when its object is actually perceived. This is
what one might expect; for it is only then that the danger
situation is present. Similarly, at the hands of a father
who is absent castration need not be feared. Now one
cannot do away with one’s father; he comes and goes as
he pleases. But if he is replaced by some animal, then it
is only necessary to avoid the sight of that animal, that is,

62

its presence, to be free from danger and anxiety. Little
Hans therefore imposes a restriction upon his ego; he
evolves the inhibition against going out in order not to
encounter horses. It is even more convenient for the little
Russian; it scarcely constitutes a renunciation on his part
not to have anything more to do with a certain picture
book. The naughty sister need only desist from showing
him the picture in that book of the wolf that stood on
its hind legs, and he could feel perfectly safe from his
anxiety.

On a previous occasion I ascribed to phobias the char-
acter of a projection, since they substitute for an internal
instinctual danger an external perceptual one. Such a
process has the advantage that from an external danger
protection may be gained through flight and the avoid-
ance of the perception of it, whereas against a danger from
within, flight is of no avail. This statement of mine is
not incorrect, but superficial. For the instinctual demand
is not in itself a danger, but is so only because it entails
a true external danger, that of castration. So that funda-
mentally we have in the phobias, after all, merely the
substituting of one external danger for another. The fact
that in phobias the ego is able to escape anxiety through
a process of avoidance or by means of an inhibition is in
complete accord with the concept that this anxiety is
simply an affective signal, and that with regard to the
economic situation involved nothing has been altered.

The anxiety in zoöphobia is thus an affective reaction
of the ego to danger, the danger which is in this case
warned against being that of castration. There is no dif-
ference between this anxiety and the reality fear normally
manifested by the ego in situations of danger, other than

63

the fact that the content of the former remains uncon-
scious and enters consciousness only in distorted form.
This same concept will prove to hold good, I believe,
for the phobias of adults also, even though here the ma-
terial which the neurosis elaborates is far more complex,
and even though a number of other factors which go to the
forming of symptoms are superadded. Fundamentally the
situation is the same. The sufferer from agoraphobia im-
poses a restriction upon his ego in order to escape an in-
stinctual danger. The instinctual danger in question is
the temptation to yield to his erotic desires; and to yield
to them would be to reincarnate once again, as in child-
hood, the specter of the danger of castration or of an
analogous danger. As an example I may refer to the case
of a young man who became agoraphobic because he was
afraid of yielding to the allurements of prostitutes and
of acquiring syphilis as a punishment.
I am well aware that many cases have a more compli-
cated structure, and that many other repressed instinctual
impulses may have their issue in a phobia, but these are
merely auxiliary and have as a rule become attached sub-
sequently to the nuclear material of the neurosis. The
symptomatology of agoraphobia is complicated by the
fact that the ego is not content with renouncing some-
thing; in addition to this, it takes steps to deprive the
situation of its danger. This additional measure is usually
a regression to childhood (in extreme cases, to the uterus,
to a period when one was protected against the dangers
which threaten today); the regression constitutes the con-
dition under which the renunciation need not be made.
Thus the agoraphobic may go on the street provided that,
like a small child, he is accompanied by a person in whom

64

he has full confidence. A similar caution may also permit
him to go out alone, provided that he does not go more
than a certain distance away from home, that he does
not enter localities which he does not know well and
where the people do not know him. In the choice of these
specifications there becomes manifest the influence of
the infantile motives which govern him by means of his
neurosis. Of quite unequivocal meaning, even without
infantile regression of this sort, is the morbid fear of
being alone, which would avoid the temptation to solitary
masturbation. Infantile regression is, of course, condi-
tional upon the individual’s being chronologically no
longer a child.

The phobia is produced, as a rule, subsequent to an
initial attack of anxiety which was experienced under cer-
tain circumstances–on the street, on a railroad train, or
on an occasion of being alone, for example. For the mo-
ment the anxiety is stilled, only to reappear on every oc-
casion on which the conditions that assure protection can-
not be met. The phobic mechanism works very well as
a means of defense and exhibits a considerable measure
of stability. A continuation of the defensive struggle, now
directed against the symptom, frequently but not neces-
sarily takes place.

What we have learned about anxiety in the phobias
is applicable also to compulsion neurosis. It is not dif-
ficult to reduce the situation of the compulsion neurosis
to that of the phobia. The motive force behind all later
symptom formation is here clearly the ego’s fear of its
superego. The hostility of the superego is the danger
situation which the ego must avoid. Here any semblance
of projection is lacking; the danger is wholly internalized.

65

INFANTILE ZOÖPHOBIA

But when we ask what it is that the ego fears at the hands
of the superego, the conclusion is forced upon us that
the punishment meted out by the superego is an ex-
tension of the punishment of castration. Just as the super-
ego is the father become impersonalized, so the dread
of the castration which he threatened has become con-
verted into indefinite social anxiety or dread of con-
science. But this anxiety is insured against; the ego escapes
it by carrying out obediently the commands, the pre-
ventive measures and the penances imposed upon it. If
it is impeded in doing this, there immediately ensues an
extremely distressing sense of discomfort in which we
may perceive the equivalent of anxiety and which the
patient himself equates with anxiety. What we have ar-
rived at is therefore the following: Anxiety is the re-
action to a situation of danger; and it is circumvented
by the ego’s doing something to avoid the situation or
retreat from it. One might say, then, that symptoms are
created in order to avoid the development of anxiety,
but such a formulation does not go below the surface. It
is more accurate to say that symptoms are created in order
to avoid the danger situation of which anxiety sounds the
alarm. In the cases so far considered this danger was cas-
tration or a derivative of it.

If anxiety is the reaction of the ego to danger, then it
would be the obvious thing to regard the traumatic neu-
roses, which are so often the sequel to exposure to danger
to life, as the direct result of life-
or death-anxiety, with
the exclusion of any dependence, in its ætiology, upon
the ego and castration. This is what was done by the
majority of observers in the case of the traumatic neuroses
of the last war, and it has been triumphantly claimed

66

that proof is now at hand that jeopardy to the instinct
of self-preservation is capable of giving rise to a neurosis
without the participation of sexuality at all, and without
regard to the complicated hypotheses of psychoanalysis.
It is, as a matter of fact, extremely to be regretted that
not a single reliable analysis of a case of traumatic neu-
rosis exists. It is to be regretted, not on account of the
objection against the ætiological significance of sexuality,
for this objection has long since been met through the
introduction of the concept of narcissism, which brings
the libidinal cathexis of the ego into line with object-
cathexes and emphasizes the libidinal nature of the in-
stinct of self-preservation—it is to be regretted not on
this account, but rather because through the lack of such
analyses we have missed the most precious opportunity
to obtain information of crucial importance regarding
the relationship between anxiety and symptom forma-
tion. According to all that we know of the structure of
the simpler neuroses of everyday life, it is very improba-
ble that a neurosis should come about only by reason of
the objective fact of exposure to danger without the
participation of the deeper unconscious strata of the
mental apparatus. In the unconscious, however, there is
nothing to give content to our conception of the destruc-
tion of life. Castration becomes, as it were, imaginable
through the daily experience of parting with the contents
of the bowel and through the loss of the mother’s breast
which is experienced in weaning; but nothing similar to
death has ever been experienced, or if it has been, it has
left, like fainting, no demonstrable trace. I therefore
maintain that the fear of death is to be regarded as an
analogue of the fear of castration, and that the situation

67

INFANTILE ZOÖPHOBIA

to which the ego reacts is the state of being forsaken or
deserted by the protecting superego–by the powers of
destiny–which puts an end to security against every
danger. It is also to be taken into account that in the
experiences which result in traumatic neurosis the ex-
ternal protective mechanism against stimuli of excessive
strength is broken down and excessive quanta of excita-
tion gain access to the mental apparatus, so that here the
second possibility exists that anxiety is not only employed
as an affective signal but is also newly created in response
to the economic demands of the situation.

With the above formulation–namely, that through
regularly repeated losses of objects the ego has been pre-
pared for castration–we have arrived at a new concep-
tion of anxiety. If we have thus far considered it as an
affective signal of danger, it now appears to us, since it
is so frequently a matter of the danger of castration, as
the reaction to a loss, to a separation. Though various
considerations which immediately occur to one seem also
to tell against this conclusion, we must nevertheless be
struck by a phenomenon which is in very remarkable
agreement with it. The first anxiety experience, of the
human being at least, is birth; and this means, objec-
tively, separation from the mother, and could be likened
to a castration of the mother (in accordance with the
equation: child = penis). Now it would be very satis-
factory if anxiety as the symbol of a separation were to
be repeated on the occasion of every subsequent separa-
tion, but unfortunately the applicability of the agreement
I have just spoken of is discounted by the fact that, sub-
jectively, birth is not at all experienced as a separation
from the mother, since the mother, in the rôle of object,

68

is entirely unknown to the completely narcissistic fœtus.
Another consideration that would apply is that affective
reactions to a separation are known to us, and that we
experience them as grief and mourning, not as anxiety.
We recall, to be sure, that in our discussion of mourning
we were also unable to understand why mourning is so
painful.