ABSTRACT
We already know from ‘Early analysis’ (1923b, WMK I) and ‘The rôle of the school in the libidinal development of the child’ (1923a, WMK I) that Grete is a 9-year-old girl with a stutter and a strong homosexual fixation. Symptoms that also appear in the notes are a worm phobia and hourly micturition. The documents show that she had been living with her aunt since the age of 5. She seemed to be able to see her mother mainly in the holidays – the reason for which, like much else in Grete’s history, remains unclear and uncertain. The father was drafted into the army when Grete was 3 years old; he came home on leave when she was 5 and subsequently never returned. An elder brother died. Whether this is the brother referred to in the occasional talk of a ‘little brother’, or whether there was another brother who was younger, cannot be established for certain. Furthermore, the case history information includes an accident in her second year, in which Grete received burns to her face from a burning object, possibly a lamp. She had stuttered since then, and undoubtedly to some extent before that as well, as her father had also done in childhood.
