Freud

• Freud's psychodynamic theory suggests that the unconscious mind contains unresolved conflicts that shape our personality and show up in our dreams, fantasies and anxieties. He thinks we have 3 part of the unconscious mind: Id, ego and superego. The Id drives basic urges, the superego wants to be moral and the ego seeks balance between the 2.
• Freud says that our ego develops defence mechanisms such as displacement.
• Freud believes we pass through psychosexual stages of development such as the phallic stage that the child's libido is focused on the opposite sex parent and envy and fear of the same gender parent. For boys this is known as the Oedipus complex. Freud was interested in analysing a young boys fear of white horses during the phallic stage.
• The aim of this study was to report the findings of the treatment of a young boy of his phobia of horses and to find evidence of Freud's theory of psychosexual development and the Oedipus complex.
• Freud studied a boy from Vienna Austria named Little Hans. He was 3 when the study started and 5 when it ended, he was going through the phallic stage and had a unique phobia of white horses.
• Freud conducted a longitudinal case study. Hans' father had many conversations with Hans where he asked about his dreams and observed his behaviour. His father sent these finding to Freud via a letter that Freud then interpreted. Hans' father was a supporter of Freud.
• Hans had an extreme fear of white horses where he thought a horse was going to bite him so he wouldn't leave the house. He had seen a large horse fall over while wearing blinkers and a bridle. Due to this fear his mother let him sleep in her bed.

  Freud believed this was a way for him to become closer and more intimate with his mother. He also believed the fear of the horses was a displaced fear of his father since the bridle looked like his moustache and the blinkers look like his glasses.
• Hans had a dream that there was a big giraffe and a crumpled giraffe, the big one called out to him because Hans had taken the crumpled giraffe away.

  Freud believed this was symbolic of the family exchange in the parental bed. Hans would get into bed with his mother and his father would shout at him until he left.
• Hans' final fantasy was one where he had children, at first he would say he was their mummy then he would say he was their daddy.

  Freud believed this symbolised Hans moving out of the phallic stage and beginning to identify with his father and becoming a male.
• Freud concluded that Hans' fears were due to his progression through the Oedipus complex and phallic stage. Psychosexual phases can have large impacts on behaviour as a misunderstanding of libido can cause anxiety. Defence mechanisms, like displacement, can cause unique phobias (e.g. of white horses).