Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/7

A MAN'S UNCONSCIOUS PHANTASY OF PREGNANCY 261 peculiarities described, and to be developed further, can at once be recognised as representatives, disguised and so compatible with consciousness, of such of the patient's complexes as appeared, if not pathogenic, at least exaggerated. Along with these enquiries the family history came to light, but I vi'ill confine myself here only to its most essential points. He came of peasants, as an eldest child, and they still lived on the farm where he had been brought up. Eight of the fourteen children of the marriage were alive. The youngest, a seven year old sister, had some relation to the patient's neurosis; likewise the eldest sister, a girl of twenty-four, whose way of living he judged most harshly without adequate cause. We found that his sexual researches had been very active at the time of her birth. He had noted enviously how tenderly they anticipated her arrival; a screen-memory involved the wish for her death. Later too, he had felt no more gently towards her, and by unconscious identi- fication with the father, had constantly found something to criti- cise. On a visit to his parents during treatment he turned her suitor out of the house. The significance of the youngest sister was cleared up only at the climax of the treatment. He had no very strong feelings about his brothers, in relation to whom he rather fancied himself as the first-born; to one only, who had been drowned in adolescence, was his attitude of any consequence. He had lent him the money to bathe, and so for a time felt partly guilty of his death. He was then sixteen years old. This memory still contributed to the feelings he experienced as driver in accidents involving others. Very vivid memories of earliest years were centered round the grandparents, who had lived at home with them. The respect shown to them by the grown-ups had intensified their consequence in the eyes of the child. He told of his grandmother that she had taken his mother's place in the house during the latter's frequent lying up with child, and had insisted on great tidiness; he was said to have inherited this character trait from her. He had been told that at nine months he had been making his first attempts to walk, or rather to crawl (he had developed very precociously), when his grandmother had unintentionally stepped on his thumb — he had already given up sucking it. So in his memories it fell to the woman to be the first disturber of the pursuit of pleasure. She too was supposed to have uttered the first castration threats.