A MAN'S UNCONSCIOUS PHANTASY OF PREGNANCY 267
patient was deeply hurt by the faithlessness of his bride, and her want of trust in him; with thje child itself, a girl, he put up more readily, and later took it to live with them. However he then felt deceived (the jealousy-constellation, with obvious interest in the seducer), and broke off the relationship they had begun. Several months later he first proposed to come to an amicable agreement. His parents were absent from the wedding, which he regretted grievously. His father was temporarily ill, and his mother lay in bed with child — his youngest sister.' As her frequent pregnancies are related, as we shall see, to his infantile anal-erotic desires, one could hardly escape the thought that this time too the repressed instinct may have obtained reinforcing contributions from the favourable circumstance, namely the sister's birth. Having embarked on marriage in such modest circum- stances, it was necessary to live economically, al though, following in the parental footsteps, he strove from the first day to possess a well-established household. Here his systematization came in. Everything was to be done properly, and in order — first estab- lishment, then increase of family. For this reason moreover, the satisfaction of his most ardent wish- — to have a child — -had at all costs to be postponed. This is the right moment at which to examine this wish more closely; intense narcissistic self-love alone could underlie it, for in phantasy he always thought of having male offspring only. The co-operation of the circumstances tlius briefly set, which are yet to appear more sharply defined and determined in relation to the whole, and more especially the thwarted life-wish of the patient, rooted in emotionally toned infantile phantasy, suffice to account for the nervous constipation, which in view of all this, can have only one meaning — the expected child is for the time being not to arrive. Equating child with faeces, natural in unconscious thought, ^ was frequently demon- strated in this case from dreams. Our patient did not at that time
» Cf. Freud, 'Analyse der Phobic eines fUnfjahrigen Knabeu' ('Lumpf- theorie"), Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, 3. Folge, 1913; and ' 0ber Triebumsetzungen insbesondere der Analerotik. ' Ibid., 4. Folge, 1918. I would recount here the following from the history of a young woman. With a strong father fixation as a child, she began to suffer from serious constipation at her sixth year (motions once or twice a week, with great struggles). Then her youngest sister was born, and for a long time she was hostile, but later developed an intense almost maternal tenderness towards her. After the death of this sister, melancholic moods set in. Constipation continued with
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