Little Hans

• Aims:

  • Provide evidence of the Oedipus Complex
  • Find out why Hans had a phobia of horses
• Procedure:

  Freud exchanged letters with Hans’ father and asked him to describe the contents of Hans dreams.
• Dream 1

  • Hans dreamt that he was married to his mother ( manifest content. ) • Freud’s interpretation was that he had an unconscious romantic desire for his mother (latent content).
• Dream 2

  • A large giraffe squashing a crumpled giraffe ( manifest content. )
  • The large giraffe represented his father and the smaller one his mother. Freud believed the giraffe’s long neck was symbolic of his father’s penis.
  • fear of his father ( latent content )
• Dream 3

  • A plumber came to the house and removed Han’s penis replacing it with a larger one.
  • Freud said this showed his desire to be a grown up and marry his mother as well as linking his penis obsession to the phallic stage of development.
• Conclusion

  • Hans used symbolism in his dreams to express desire for his mother and fear of his father. By doing this he resolved his Oedipus Complex and satisfied the desire of his id.
• Strengths

  • Case studies are useful in revealing and treating abnormal behaviour.
  • Case studies produce qualitative data which provides a lot of detail
  • It is highly applicable to trauma survivors and PTSD patients who tend to dream a lot.
• Weaknesses

  • Unscientific.
  • The study involved one case study so it’s hard to generalise.
  • Jung (1964) argued that dream symbols are unique to the individual and cannot have a general meaning.
  • The evidence is subjective and not research based. It’s possible that Freud and Han’s father changed the dreams to fit the theory