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The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

• Behind the Book

Historical Significance

Praise and criticism.

"The Interpretation of Dreams" was a book written by the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and published in 1899. As one of Freud's earliest books, the theories, ideas, and case studies described within "The Interpretation of Dreams" helped set the stage for psychoanalytic theory.

The book is notable because it introduced many of Freud's best-known ideas, including the notion of the unconscious mind and how it relates to the interpretation of dreams. Freud also published an abridged version of the text titled "On Dreams."

This article discusses why "The Interpretation of Dreams" is important and some of the criticisms of the text. It also covers the history of the book and the impact that it had on the field of psychology.

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Why 'The Interpretation of Dreams' Is Important

"The Interpretation of Dreams" is the classic text on dream analysis and interpretation. In it, Freud introduces many key concepts that would later become central to the theory of psychoanalysis. The book also emphasizes the role of the unconscious mind , which is one of the underlying principles of  Freudian psychology .

If you want to understand the foundations of psychoanalysis and explore Freud's theories in greater depth, then "The Interpretation of Dreams" is essential reading.

The book is widely regarded as one of Freud's most important publications. If you are interested in Sigmund Freud , the origins of psychoanalysis, or dream interpretation , this is a must-have text for your collection.

For those interested in dream research , "The Interpretation of Dreams" serves as an excellent introduction to many of Freud's major ideas. The book outlines his belief that dreams are highly symbolic, containing both overt meanings, called  manifest content , and underlying, unconscious thoughts, known as  latent content . Dreams, he suggested, are our unconscious wishes in disguise.

The History Behind the Book

When Freud started analyzing himself, he used his dreams quite frequently in the process. Always a vivid dreamer, Freud had by this time also noticed the impact of dreams on his patients, including psychotic patients whose hallucinations were similar to dreams.

Between his own experience and that of his patients, Freud concluded that dreams are almost always expressions of unfulfilled wishes.

Believing sincerely in the importance of dreams and realizing no one had written much, if anything, about the subject, Freud spent two years writing "The Interpretation of Dreams."   Originally published in German under the title  Die Traumdeutung  in 1900, initial sales of the book were slow and disappointing. It was largely ignored by the scientific community.

By 1910, Freud's other work was becoming well-known, and so "The Interpretation of Dreams" became more popular. It was translated into English and Russian in 1913 and six more languages by 1938. Seven more editions were also printed during his lifetime.

Freud based many of his ideas on his observations of his own dreams as well of those of his patients. Reaction to "The Interpretation of Dreams" was initially poor, but the book eventually grew in popularity.

Freud was an incredibly prolific writer, publishing more than 320 different books, articles, and essays. Out of this impressive body of work, Freud described "The Interpretation of Dreams" as his personal favorite as well as his most significant contribution to the understanding of human thought.

"[It] contains… the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime," he explained.

"The Interpretation of Dreams" stands as a unique and classic work in the history of psychology . No matter what you may think of Sigmund Freud’s psychological theories, the cultural impact and historical importance of this book are without question.

Freud's book left an important mark on psychology, but not all of his ideas were accepted, both then and now.

Praise for 'The Interpretation of Dreams'

Without a doubt, "The Interpretation of Dreams" is an important book. While not all of the ideas in the book have fared well, it is an interesting read for both laypersons and psychology professionals because Freud's writing is both engaging and intriguing. The case studies he describes in the book also offer an interesting glimpse into his work as a psychoanalyst.

However, there is a notable lack of scientific rigor throughout the book. Many of Freud's conclusions lack empirical support.

Many of Freud's ideas have not been substantiated by current research and aspects of his psychoanalytic theories have not fared well over time.

For example, Freud believed that dreams were a way to gain insight in the workings of the unconscious mind. However, researchers have found that the content of dreams is most often simply a reflection of waking life. People often dream about things that are on their minds, which is a reflection of conscious thoughts rather than unconscious thoughts.

In "The Interpretation of Dreams," Freud also suggested that dreams were a form of wish fulfillment. The problem is that some dreams focus on difficult topics such as trauma, punishment, or anxiety. While Freud suggested that such dreams were a way to cope with the problem rather than wish fulfillment, such dreams are more often a reflection of worries or memories than a way of coping.

While Freud believed that dreams were primarily about wish fulfillment and expressions of the unconscious, researchers today believe that dreams serve to consolidate memory and learning. The often fragmented and confusing content of dreams may be the brain's way of incorporating new information and experiences into long-term memory.

Modern research does not necessarily agree that the primary function of dreams is to reveal the contents of the unconscious. Instead, researchers believe that dreams may serve an important role in the consolidation of memory.

Despite Freud’s tendency to over-generalize, his lack of scientific evidence, his overemphasis on sex , and his frequently chauvinistic viewpoints, this seminal work remains important in the history of psychology. "The Interpretation of Dreams" marked the beginning of ​ psychoanalysis and is a fascinating text revealing Freud’s unique talent as a writer and ambitious theorist.

Grubin D.  Young Dr. Freud . Public Broadcasting Service.

PBS. Freud's book, "The Interpretation of Dreams," released 1900 . People and Discoveries.

Zhang W, Guo B. Freud's dream interpretation: A different perspective based on the self-organization theory of dreaming .  Front Psychol . 2018;9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01553

Freud Museum London. The Interpretation of Dreams: A guide to Sigmund Freud's theory of dreams and his method for dream interpretation .

Dallas Baptist University.  Freud. Bibliography (full) .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Sigmund Freud’s Theories & Contribution to Psychology

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) was the founding father of psychoanalysis , a method for treating mental illness and a theory explaining human behavior.

Freud believed that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives, shaping our personality. For example, anxiety originating from traumatic experiences in a person’s past is hidden from consciousness and may cause problems during adulthood (neuroses).

Thus, when we explain our behavior to ourselves or others (conscious mental activity), we rarely give a true account of our motivation. This is not because we are deliberately lying. While human beings are great deceivers of others; they are even more adept at self-deception.

Freud’s life work was dominated by his attempts to penetrate this often subtle and elaborate camouflage that obscures the hidden structure and processes of personality.

His lexicon has become embedded within the vocabulary of Western society. Words he introduced through his theories are now used by everyday people, such as anal (personality), libido, denial , repression, cathartic, Freudian slip , and neurotic.

Who is Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, born on May 6, 1856, in what is now Příbor, Czech Republic (then part of the Austrian Empire), is hailed as the father of psychoanalysis. He was the eldest of eight children in a Jewish family.

Freud initially wanted to become a law professional but later developed an interest in medicine. He entered the University of Vienna in 1873, graduating with an MD in 1881. His primary interests included neurology and neuropathology. He was particularly interested in the condition of hysteria and its psychological causes.

In 1885, Freud received a grant to study with Jean-Martin Charcot, a renowned neurologist who used hypnosis to treat women suffering from what was then called “hysteria.” This experience sparked Freud’s interest in the unconscious mind, a theme that would recur throughout his career.

In 1886, Freud returned to Vienna, married Martha Bernays, and set up a private practice to treat nervous disorders. His work during this time led to his revolutionary concepts of the human mind and the development of the psychoanalytic method.

Freud introduced several influential concepts, including the Oedipus complex, dream analysis, and the structural model of the psyche divided into the id, ego, and superego. He published numerous works throughout his career, the most notable being “ The Interpretation of Dreams ” (1900), “ The Psychopathology of Everyday Life ” (1901), and “ Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality ” (1905).

Despite controversy and opposition, Freud continued to develop his theories and expand the field of psychoanalysis. He was deeply affected by the outbreak of World War I and later by the rise of the Nazis in Germany. In 1938, due to the Nazi threat, he emigrated to London with his wife and youngest daughter.

Freud died in London on September 23, 1939, but his influence on psychology, literature, and culture remains profound and pervasive.

He radically changed our understanding of the human mind, emphasizing the power of unconscious processes and pioneering therapeutic techniques that continue to be used today.

Sigmund Freud’s Theories & Contributions

Psychoanalytic Theory : Freud is best known for developing psychoanalysis , a therapeutic technique for treating mental health disorders by exploring unconscious thoughts and feelings.

Unconscious Mind : Freud (1900, 1905) developed a topographical model of the mind, describing the features of the mind’s structure and function. Freud used the analogy of an iceberg to describe the three levels of the mind.

The id, ego, and superego have most commonly been conceptualized as three essential parts of the human personality.

Psychosexual Development : Freud’s controversial theory of psychosexual development suggests that early childhood experiences and stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital) shape our adult personality and behavior.

His theory of psychosexual stages of development is predicated by the concept that childhood experiences create the adult personality and that problems in early life would come back to haunt the individual as a mental illness.

Dream Analysis : Freud believed dreams were a window into the unconscious mind and developed methods for analyzing dream content for repressed thoughts and desires.

Dreams represent unfulfilled wishes from the id, trying to break through to the conscious. But because these desires are often unacceptable, they are disguised or censored using such defenses as symbolism.

Freud believed that by undoing the dreamwork , the analyst could study the manifest content (what they dreamt) and interpret the latent content ( what it meant) by understanding the symbols.

Defense Mechanisms : Freud proposed several defense mechanisms , like repression and projection , which the ego employs to handle the tension and conflicts among the id, superego, and the demands of reality.

Sigmund Freud’s Patients

Sigmund Freud’s clinical work with several patients led to major breakthroughs in psychoanalysis and a deeper understanding of the human mind. Here are summaries of some of his most notable cases:

Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim) : Known as the ‘birth of psychoanalysis,’ Anna O . was a patient of Freud’s colleague Josef Breuer. However, her case heavily influenced Freud’s thinking.

She suffered from various symptoms, including hallucinations and paralysis, which Freud interpreted as signs of hysteria caused by repressed traumatic memories. The “talking cure” method with Anna O. would later evolve into Freudian psychoanalysis.

Dora (Ida Bauer) : Dora, a pseudonym Freud used, was a teenager suffering from what he diagnosed as hysteria. Her symptoms included aphonia (loss of voice) and a cough.

Freud suggested her issues were due to suppressed sexual desires, particularly those resulting from a complex series of relationships in her family. The Dora case is famous for the subject’s abrupt termination of therapy, and for the criticisms Freud received regarding his handling of the case.

Little Hans (Herbert Graf) : Little Hans , a five-year-old boy, feared horses. Freud never met Hans but used information from the boy’s father to diagnose him.

He proposed that Little Hans’ horse phobia was symbolic of a deeper fear related to the Oedipus Complex – unconscious feelings of affection for his mother and rivalry with his father. The case of Little Hans is often used as an example of Freud’s theory of the Oedipal Complex in children.

Rat Man (Ernst Lanzer) : Rat Man came to Freud suffering from obsessive thoughts and fears related to rats, a condition known as obsessional neurosis.

Freud connected his symptoms to suppressed guilt and repressed sexual desires. The treatment of Rat Man further expanded Freud’s work on understanding the role of internal conflicts and unconscious processes in mental health disorders.

Wolf Man (Sergei Pankejeff) : Wolf Man was a wealthy Russian aristocrat who came to Freud with various symptoms, including a recurring dream about wolves.

Freud’s analysis, focusing on childhood memories and dreams, led him to identify the presence of repressed memories and the influence of the Oedipus Complex . Wolf Man’s treatment is often considered one of Freud’s most significant and controversial cases.

In the highly repressive “Victorian” society in which Freud lived and worked, women, in particular, were forced to repress their sexual needs. In many cases, the result was some form of neurotic illness.

Freud sought to understand the nature and variety of these illnesses by retracing the sexual history of his patients. This was not primarily an investigation of sexual experiences as such. Far more important were the patient’s wishes and desires, their experience of love, hate, shame, guilt, and fear – and how they handled these powerful emotions.

Freud’s Followers

Freud attracted many followers, who formed a famous group in 1902 called the “Psychological Wednesday Society.” The group met every Wednesday in Freud’s waiting room.

As the organization grew, Freud established an inner circle of devoted followers, the so-called “Committee” (including Sàndor Ferenczi, and Hanns Sachs (standing) Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Max Eitingon, and Ernest Jones).

At the beginning of 1908, the committee had 22 members and was renamed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

Neo-Freudians

The term “neo-Freudians” refers to psychologists who were initially followers of Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) but later developed their own theories, often modifying or challenging Freud’s ideas.

Here are summaries of some of the most notable neo-Freudians:

Carl Jung : Jung (1875 – 1961) was a close associate of Freud but split due to theoretical disagreements. He developed the concept of analytical psychology, emphasizing the collective unconscious, which houses universal symbols or archetypes shared by all human beings. He also introduced the idea of introversion and extraversion.

Alfred Adler : Adler (1870 – 1937) was another early follower of Freud who broke away due to differing views. He developed the school of individual psychology, highlighting the role of feelings of inferiority and the striving for superiority or success in shaping human behavior. He also emphasized the importance of social context and community.

• Otto Rank : Rank (1884 – 1939)  was an early collaborator with Freud and played a significant role in the development of psychoanalysis. He proposed the “trauma of birth” as a critical event influencing the psyche. Later, he shifted focus to the relationship between therapist and client, influencing the development of humanistic therapies.

Karen Horney : Horney (1885 – 1952) challenged Freud’s views on women, arguing against the concept of “penis envy.” She suggested that social and cultural factors significantly influence personality development and mental health. Her concept of ‘basic anxiety’ centered on feelings of helplessness and insecurity in childhood, shaping adult behavior.

• Harry Stack Sullivan : Sullivan (1892 – 1949) developed interpersonal psychoanalysis, emphasizing the role of interpersonal relationships and social experiences in personality development and mental disorders. He proposed the concept of the “self-system” formed through experiences of approval and disapproval during childhood.

Melanie Klein : Klein (1882 – 1960), a prominent psychoanalyst, is considered a neo-Freudian due to her development of object relations theory, which expanded on Freud’s ideas. She emphasized the significance of early childhood experiences and the role of the mother-child relationship in psychological development.

• Anna Freud : Freud’s youngest daughter significantly contributed to psychoanalysis, particularly in child psychology. Anna Freud (1895 – 1982) expanded on her father’s work, emphasizing the importance of ego defenses in managing conflict and preserving mental health.

Wilhelm Reich : Reich (1897 – 1957), once a student of Freud, diverged by focusing on bodily experiences and sexual repression, developing the theory of orgone energy. His emphasis on societal influence and body-oriented therapy made him a significant neo-Freudian figure.

• Erich Fromm : Fromm (1900-1980) was a German-American psychoanalyst associated with the Frankfurt School, who emphasized culture’s role in developing personality. He advocated psychoanalysis as a tool for curing cultural problems and thus reducing mental illness.

Erik Erikson : Erikson (1902 – 1994)  extended Freud’s theory of psychosexual development by adding social and cultural aspects and proposing a lifespan development model. His theory of psychosocial development outlined eight stages, each marked by a specific crisis to resolve, that shape an individual’s identity and relationships.

Critical Evaluation

Does evidence support Freudian psychology? Freud’s theory is good at explaining but not predicting behavior (which is one of the goals of science ).

For this reason, Freud’s theory is unfalsifiable – it can neither be proved true or refuted. For example, the unconscious mind is difficult to test and measure objectively. Overall, Freud’s theory is highly unscientific.

Despite the skepticism of the unconscious mind, cognitive psychology has identified unconscious processes, such as procedural memory (Tulving, 1972), automatic processing (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Stroop, 1935), and social psychology has shown the importance of implicit processing (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Such empirical findings have demonstrated the role of unconscious processes in human behavior.

However, most evidence for Freud’s theories is from an unrepresentative sample. He mostly studied himself, his patients, and only one child (e.g., Little Hans ).

The main problem here is that the case studies are based on studying one person in detail, and regarding Freud, the individuals in question are most often middle-aged women from Vienna (i.e., his patients).

This makes generalizations to the wider population (e.g., the whole world) difficult. However, Freud thought this unimportant, believing in only a qualitative difference between people.

Freud may also have shown research bias in his interpretations – he may have only paid attention to information that supported his theories, and ignored information and other explanations that did not fit them.

However, Fisher & Greenberg (1996) argue that Freud’s theory should be evaluated in terms of specific hypotheses rather than a whole. They concluded that there is evidence to support Freud’s concepts of oral and anal personalities and some aspects of his ideas on depression and paranoia.

They found little evidence of the Oedipal conflict and no support for Freud’s views on women’s sexuality and how their development differs from men’.

Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American psychologist, 54 (7), 462.

Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1895). Studies on hysteria . Standard Edition 2: London.

Fisher, S., & Greenberg, R. P. (1996). Freud scientifically reappraised: Testing the theories and therapy . John Wiley & Sons.

Freud, S. (1894). The neuro-psychoses of defence . SE, 3: 41-61.

Freud, S. (1896). Further remarks on the neuro-psychoses of defence . SE, 3: 157-185.

Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams . S.E., 4-5.

Freud, S. (1901). The psychopathology of everyday life. SE, 6.  London: Hogarth .

Freud, S. (1905). Three essays on the theory of sexuality.  Se ,  7 , 125-243.

Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious . SE, 14: 159-204.

Freud, S. (1920) . Beyond the pleasure principle . SE, 18: 1-64.

Freud, S. (1923). The ego and the id . SE, 19: 1-66.

Freud, S. (1925). Negation. Standard edition , 19, 235-239.

Freud, S. (1961). The resistances to psycho-analysis. In T he Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIX (1923-1925): The Ego and the Id and other works (pp. 211-224).

Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological review, 102 (1), 4.

Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of experimental psychology, 18 (6), 643.

Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of Memory , (pp. 381–403). New York: Academic Press.

What is Freud most famous for?

Why is freud so criticized, what did sigmund freud do.

His conceptualization of the mind’s structure (id, ego, superego), his theories of psychosexual development, and his exploration of defense mechanisms revolutionized our understanding of human psychology.

Despite controversies and criticisms, Freud’s theories have fundamentally shaped the field of psychology and the way we perceive the human mind.

What is the Freudian revolution’s impact on society?

Don’t miss our major exhibition Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists (30 October 2024-5 May 2025). Supported by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Trust.

• Freud’s Method for Interpreting Dreams

Say whatever comes to mind in relation to each element of the dream.

Freud was careful to distance his method of dream interpretation from popular methods., dreams do have meanings.

The science of Freud’s time regarded dreams as meaningless.

The theory that dreams are just random by-products of the brain’s functioning during REM sleep is still maintained by some scientists today.

It is also the theory we sometimes invoke to reassure ourselves when a dream has overwhelmed us with its meaning: ‘It was only a dream!’

For Freud, every dream is meaningful, no matter how nonsensical it seems or how little of it we remember.

There is no ‘dream dictionary’

A popular approach to dreams is to interpret them with the help of a fixed dictionary of symbols:

‘If you dream of X, it means Y.’ A house represents your mind, flying represents ambition, and so on.

This is often assumed to be central to Freud’s theory of dreams. But in fact, Freud undermined this naive theory of symbolic equivalences.

All dream elements are ‘symbolic’, but they have private meanings that can only be discovered through the dreamer’s associations.

Freud's method for interpreting dreams was very simple.

I must affirm that dreams really have a meaning and that a scientific procedure for interpreting them is possible. Sigmund Freud

Instead of telling his patients what he thought their dreams meant, he invited them to say whatever came to mind in relation to each element of the dream, following their own trains of thought.

He encouraged them to relax their critical faculties, and to refrain from holding back thoughts that seem unpleasant, trivial or ridiculous.

He called this method  free association .

The method of free association led Freud to the conclusion that  dreams are the disguised fulfilments of repressed infantile wishes .

In the following chapters we’re going to unpack this claim by looking at how he builds his argument.

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• The Interpretation of Dreams

A guide to Sigmund Freud's theory of dreams and his method of dream interpretation.

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• Wish Fulfilment

Freud's basic claim is that a dream is the fulfilment of a wish.

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In This Section

• Dream Distortion
• The Dream-Work
• The Infantile Sources of Dreams

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• Freudian Psychology

The Case of Little Hans

How freud used a boy's horse phobia to support his theories..

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• Sigmund Freud

The name ‘Little Hans’ is a pseudonym for Herbert Graf, the son of Viennese music critic Max Graf, a family friend of Freud and a follower of his theories. Little Hans was born in 1903 in Vienna and, unusually, was not treated directly by Freud but rather by his father, who would correspond with Freud through a series of letters, detailing his son’s behavior and quoting their conversations. Only on one occasion did Freud hold a session with the boy in person.

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Little Hans had been affected by a traumatic event which had occurred when he was four years old in which he had witnessed an accident: a horse carrying a heavily loaded cart collapsed in the street. After the event, the boy’s parents noticed that he had begun to develop a fear of horses, particularly those carrying a heavy load or those with black around their eyes, or wearing blinkers. It was believed that the phobia was linked to the sight of the large genitalia of the animals, and a fear of horses led to Little Hans trying to avoid leaving his home in case he encountered one of the animals. In Graf’s letters to Freud, he describes a preoccupation with the male genitals which led his wife to threaten the son with calling a doctor to castrate him if it did not end.

Max Graf relayed to Freud numerous conversations with his son which he felt might be of significance to the case. On one occasion, Little Hans described two giraffes entering the room that he was in. He imagined one of the giraffes to be crumpled, and took it away from the second giraffe, who called out to him.

Additionally, sibling jealousy became a problem for Little Hans. When he was 3 ½ years old, his mother gave birth to a baby sister. The attention of his mother that his newborn sister deprived him of led to feelings of jealousy towards her, and he indicated a wish that she would drown in the bath. Little Hans himself also developed a fear of such misfortune occurring to him. The birth of his sister led Little Hans to question the process of conception and childbirth. Unwilling to explain this to their son, his parents provided with a traditional story of stork birds delivering newborn babies in boxes.

Freud’s View on Little Hans

By the time Max Graf sought help from Freud, his theory of psychosexual development had already been established. Freud believed that infants experience five stages during which the primary erogenous zone changes. To summarize, the first three stages are:

Oral Stage - from birth to around 1 year of age, during which the need to feed is satisfied by oral means.

Anal Stage - between the ages of 1 and 3 years, toilet training brings a focus on satisfaction derived from defecation.

Phallic Stage - from the age of 3 to around 6 years, one’s self-awareness brings about an interest in the genitals, which become the main erogenous zone during this stage.

Read more about Freud’s stages of psychosexual development here

The birth of a sister and behavior described by Max Graf occurred whilst Little Hans was experiencing the phallic stage. According to Freud’s theory, his preoccupation with male genitals at this age could be understood in terms of the focus that they attracted during this stage. During the phallic stage, Freud also believed that he demonstrated signs of an Oedipus Complex , whereby the love and attention provided by the mother leads to a child’s resentment of their father, who threatens to steal the affection away from them. They may fear that the father will eliminate the threat that they pose by castrating them, leading to castration anxiety .

Freud interpreted Little Hans’ fantasy involving the two giraffes symbolically. As his father was absent for periods of time, Little Hans was allowed to sleep in his parents’ bed. Freud saw the crumpled giraffe as representing the boy’s mother - he attempted to steal her away from the other giraffe, who denoted his father, and was met with cries of opposition.

This view was further supported by a conversation in which Little Hans referred to his father as “grandfather”, envisaging himself replacing him as the paternal figure and the focus of the mother’s affection.

Little Hans’ fear of horses could also be understood in symbolic terms. Freud felt that the large genitals of the animals led to him experiencing the displacement of a fear of his father onto the horses. The black surrounding their eyes reminded Little Hans of his father, with their blinkers resembling the man’s glasses.

According to Freud’s psychoanalyst daughter, Anna Freud (1895-1982), in The Ego and the Mechanism of Defence (1936), the conflict between the father and son in competition for the affection of the mother may be resolved through a defence mechanism process known as identification with the aggressor . Through such a process, the child believes that they can appease the father by adopting his behavioral characteristics in the hope that a similarity between the two will reduce any potential conflict. 2

Freud and Graf noted how Little Hans’ fear of horses was reduced with his description of a fantasy which suggested the resolution of his castration anxiety, and with his acceptance of an Oedipus Complex, with his admission in another fantasy that he would like to replace his father and have children with his mother.

Little Hans visited Freud at the age of nineteen and his was described by Freud to be healthy, suggesting the long-term resolution of his fear. He (Herbert Graf) would go on to develop a successful career as an opera director. Graf died in Geneva in 1973.

Freud’s interpretation of the case of Little Hans and his use of the boy’s experiences to support his theories of psychosexual development have been criticised by psychologists more recently. Jerome Wakefield applied John Bowlby ’s theory of attachment to Little Hans’ giraffe fantasy, proposing that it was symbolic not only of his parents but also of the competition between him and his younger sister for the attention of their mother (Wakefield, 2007). 3

The process by which Freud obtained evidence to support his ideas has also been questioned. The case is based in part on letters from a person who Freud believed Little Hans feared and resented, raising questions as to how frank the conversations between father and son could have been.

• Strachey, J. (1955). Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 10) . London: The Hogarth Press.
• Freud, A. (1971). The Writings of Anna Freud (Vol. 2) . New York, NY: International Universities Press.
• Wakefield, J. (2007). Attachment and Sibling Rivalry in Little Hans: The Fantasy of the Two Giraffes Revisited. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association . 55 (3). 799-819.

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