Wolf Man by Sigmund Freud - Research Paper Example

The patient’s neurosis is most likely motivated by the main idea of unconscious repression and regression to a pre-genital state by the fear of incest with his sister, which interrupts the patient’s sexual development.  The symbolic interpretation of dreams is also central to the case in terms of main ideas.  Freud wrote extensively on this topic in separate works.  The primal scene of fantasy or reality of the incest is also central to the case in terms of explaining neurosis through looking at the roots through the patient’s unconscious and the interpretation of the patient’s dreams through a perspective that highlights the taboos of incest and knowledge on the part of the child of his/her parents’ carnal activities, also complicated by the sister’s role (Freud, 2009).        

The methods used by Freud in this investigation show a long and detailed relationship of increasing amounts of disclosure between the psychoanalyst and the patient.  Freud notes almost as an afterthought that the patient became very dependent on him during this process.  The patient would talk to the therapist about his childhood and his dreams as fair and even vital subjects for discussion and subsequent dissection by the therapist in terms of meaning and cause.  As is usual in Freud, most of the causes found to relate to some sort of incest fantasy involving the arrested development of the patient because of desires to be with his father, sister, and nanny sexually, in different ways and through different frustrated relationships this case shows Freud’s treatment of “The Wolf Man,” an eighteen-year-old early adult with a fear of upright wolves and disturbing childhood dreams about wolves in trees. 

The patient’s sister used her knowledge of the patient’s fear of wolves to torment him during his early childhood years.  The patient was four years old when he had a dream about white wolves in a tree.  Freud’s conclusions were ultimate that the adult’s obsessional neurosis can be traced back to childhood experiences and desires during the patient’s early childhood stages, at which time he was anxious, hysterical, and had an animal phobia (Freud, 2009). 

I think that the case focuses on childhood and the patient’s dependent relationship with the therapist.  The case was very long and drawn-out.  Freud saw the patient’s childhood behavior in terms of relationships with his mother, his nanny, and his sister primarily, but also in terms of relationships with his father which started out positive and then changed when he became jealous of the attention his father paid to his sister.  The aggression that the patient felt towards his nanny and sister are explained using Freud’s theory of the castration fear, as well as the patient’s remembered or fantasized portrayals of his sister initiating sexual activity with him and the witnessing of his nanny and perhaps also his parents in the process of copulation.  Freud states that the patient fled from his increasingly unreceptive father to Nanya as a result of his ultimate wish for sexual satisfaction from his father, whose respect for the patient’s sister was deeply envied by the patient.  The interpretation of dreams plays a crucial role in the process orientation of the case.