ABSTRACT
The concept of the syntax of oedipal thought is applied to Freud’s case of Little Hans. The author points out that, at the time of the case, Freud had not yet revised his anxiety theory or refined his definition of repression. Accordingly, Freud approached the case with the presupposition that anxiety was the consequence of, rather than the motive for, repression. Furthermore, Freud used the word repression at the time for any defensive maneuver. The author revisits the case with multiple examples to show that there was no repression (in Freud’s later sense) described anywhere in the case report, and to show how Hans’s way of thinking corresponded to oedipal syntax as previously described.
