ABSTRACT
The ego of the child has prematurely and precociously brought the traumata of early childhood under its omnipotence and created an intra-psychic structure in the nature of infantile neurosis which is a false-self organization, and which will set up a rigidity of split-existence and defensive exploitation of pregenital instincts and archaic mental functioning, most commonly met with in obsessional neurosis. This chapter considers Freud’s Wolf-man to be the classic example of such a case. Freud has given an exhaustive explanation of the infantile neurosis of the Wolf-man in terms of primal scene, seduction, and anal-sadistic libidinal conflicts. Today research into early mother-child relationship and a deeper understanding of the role of the analytic situation enable us to treat cases where early disturbances have interfered with the intra-psychic crystallization of infantile neurosis and have led to a false-self organization.
