Little John, Another Of Freud’s Emblematic Cases

The case of little Juan is another of the emblematic clinical cases of psychoanalysis. On the one hand, it tells us about the youngest character that Sigmund Freud had access to. On the other hand, it was from this case that Freud structured the foundations of child analysis and, to a large extent, his theory of phobias.

In 1909, the book, Analysis of the Phobia of a Five-Year-Old Boy, appeared . This is where Freud narrates the case of little Juan, the case of Juanito or little Hans, as he is also known. This publication corroborated what the father of psychoanalysis had already stated in his works on the interpretation of dreams.

Little John was Herbert Graf, the son of an important musicologist who was also part of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Circle. Freud clarifies that who carried out the analysis directly was the father of the child. The latter sent him the notes and from these the case as we know it was presented.

Little John’s phobia

Juanito, or little Juan, was 4 years old when his mother gave birth to his little sister. The boy wondered how the baby had come out of his belly. However, he did not find a clear answer to that question. What he did notice is that he no longer enjoyed the attention of his mother as before.

Likewise, one day his mother sees him playing with what he calls “the pee-pee device”. She warns him not to play with it too much, because if he overdoes it, they will have to “cut it”. In those he was when one day he went out with the maid to the park. There, in front of his eyes, a horse crashed down and died.

From then on he developed an intense phobia of horses. In particular, those who had something black on their muzzle. He also points out that the horse had a large “pee device”. Freud associates the figure of the horse with that of the child’s father . The father has “something black” in his mouth: a mustache.

An intense symptom and a dream

The phobia becomes so intense that little Juan refuses to leave his house. Horses were the main means of transportation back then and they were everywhere. So it was not unusual for the boy to refrain from going out. His father, who was a psychoanalyst, begins to take note of everything that happens.

Little Juan has an especially intense and interesting dream at that time. In this one there are two giraffes: a large one and a wrinkled one. The big one yells at him, because the little one has removed the wrinkle. Then his screaming stops and the boy sits on top of the wrinkled giraffe.

As you can see, there is a whole constellation of significant events at a crucial moment in the child’s development. The birth of his little sister, the threat of castration, doubts about biological mechanisms and, as Freud will show, the presence of the Oedipus complex.

The Freudian interpretation

For Freud, what underlies the whole case of little John is the Oedipus complex and the consequent castration anxiety. Let us remember that this has to do with the child’s desire to take the place of the father, in front of the mother. This desire to annul the father generates anguish of being castrated, or prevented by the father from taking his place.

The giraffes in the dream would represent the parents. Their neck is a phallic symbol. “The big one” represents the father or, rather, the father’s virile organ. “The wrinkled one” represents the mother or, rather, her vagina.

Little Juan’s father relates that the boy has taken the habit of going to his parents’ bed in the morning. The father reproaches the mother for allowing this. She tells him that it doesn’t matter and the man is silent. Then, Juanito clings to his mother. For Freud, this scene is Oedipal and is exactly what is represented in the dream.

The solution to the phobia of little Juan passes, first, by explaining in detail the biological mechanisms of birth. Then for helping him see himself as the father, and his father as his grandfather. One day the boy realizes that his penis has grown and this calms him down. The consequence was that the phobia of horses disappeared.