ABSTRACT
Little Hans, a five-year-old boy, suffered from a phobia which expressed itself as a fear that a white horse might bite him. This phobia later expanded to include a fear of horses falling down and of heavily laden vehicles such as carts, buses or furniture vans. Determined that Hans would not be derided or punished for his fears, the father made detailed notes of his discussions with Hans over a period of two years. Hans’s various phobias and fears all stem from his original anxiety concerning his mother’s genitals. In his phobia the mother ultimately represents castration, suffocation, death, the void – themes also common to the representation of the monstrous-feminine in the horror film. Hans’s mother is the unattainable object of his deepest desires and the frightening parent of his nightmares. She is the mother who is terrifying not because she is castrated but because she castrates – in two ways.
