ABSTRACT
This chapter examines territoriality and unconscious womb fantasies in some detail and illustrates them with more clinical material. In a classic paper Lewin explained that claustrophobia and fear of suffocation in enclosed locations relate to unconscious fantasies of being in the mother's womb. Claustrophobia involves territoriality. Scholars who study animal behavior tell us that to understand territoriality is a step toward understanding man's evolutionary nature. The chapter presents the case of Hamilton, who had claustrophobic behavior as an adult, but who, as a child, exhibited ritualistic behavior about being in an enclosed tight space. The childhood behavior eventually converted to a phobia in adulthood. Evidence of unconscious fantasies pertaining to the mother's womb and intrusion into one's territory by a younger sibling comes from clinical observations in the case of Stewart. These kinds of unconscious fantasies do not always cause claustrophobia; sometimes they are expressed with other symptoms or behavior patterns, including counterphobic activities and thus reenacting the fantasy.
