ABSTRACT

Sigmund Freud states that the anxiety of several typical phobias is the consequence of the "repression" of a fantasy concerning prostitution. In phobia, the adult ego is active as "the leading man or lady" in all kinds of sexual fantasies. Thus far, then, Freud left us with a distinction between the sexual daydreams in phobia and the sexual fantasy in hysteria. The chapter shows how fantasy is discovered in the course of an exploration of daydreams, on the basis of an infantile phobia. Thus, a phobia appears where fantasy fails. Once the subject has settled down in fantasy, the role of the daydreams seems to become reversed: after childhood they hide the fantasy. For instance, in the case of the fantasy "a child is being beaten", one might witness the beating of children, or give or receive the beatings oneself, etc.