Rat Man Study Case by Sigmund Freud Name: Disha Florence Palma

Student Number: 10608140

After engaging in several months of psychoanalytic sessions

Overview
Sigmund Freud was inspired by a case where a patient had
obsessive thoughts. He gave a patient the nickname, “Rat
Man” and published his case history as Bemerkungen über
einen Fall von Zwangsneurose ["Notes Upon a Case of
Obsessional Neurosis"] in 1909. In the case study, Freud
mentions how obsessive and persistent thoughts led to
irrational, compulsive behaviors. Amongst the patient's many
compulsions was an obsession with nightmarish fantasies
about rats; the nickname “Rat Man” derives from this fact. The
Rat Man case became the first in which he claimed that the
patient had been cured by psychoanalysis.
Introduction
Methods
So, he formulated a plan. The solution he came up with was with Rat Man, Sigmund Freud claimed that he had resolved
rather complicated. Nonetheless, to resolve his fear the Lanzer’s obsession and ended the treatment. However, before
lieutenant and the colleague traveled to the post office and they could do the final checkup, Ernst Lanzer was activated into
carried out a chain of transactions to ease his mind. military service in August 1914 and died in November 1914.
https://www.psychologistworld.com/freud/rat-man-case-study
Rat Man expressed that he had obsessive thoughts that Freud looked into Rat Man’s history and investigated some
would surface for no apparent reason in his mind. These events, with a view that they might be the root of his
thoughts were related to misfortune occurring to someone obsessive thoughts.
close to him. He claimed that he fantasized about the Rat man explained that he was sexually aware at an early age.
murder and suicide of his friends and relatives. These He recalled a desire to see women he knew naked. He used to
thoughts would persist until he engaged in a particular masturbate and often stared at his penis through the mirror.
Discussion
irrational action to placate the risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Man#cite_note-20
Freud narrated his case as a “moderately severe” of
“obsessional neurosis” and found his problems more
difficult to comprehend than those of his clients with
hysteria, such as the oft-quoted case of Anna O.
Rat Man’s session with Freud lasted at least 6 months. The
Repressed thoughts are not simply forgotten – according to
patient recounted numerous events that had occurred in his
Freud; they love their “affective cathexis” but retain their
life from childhood which were troubling his present life.
“ideational content” in the conscious.
Freud engaged his patient in free association; it revealed
If irrational fear blooms in the heart of the victim, this
everything that entered his mind without filtering ideas that
content could be substituted for something else – and that’s
he would repress. Freud wished to identify any signs of
what Freud believed.
repression that could come from traumatic events or
Psychoanalysis talks about the unconscious. We can never say
feelings in the Rat Man's subconscious by gaining an insight
with 100% certainty why and how our unconscious mind is
into his stream of consciousness.
doing this. For the Rat Man case study, although Freud stated
Freud found out that during Lanzer’s military service, his
that he was able to cure his patient, we couldn’t be 100% sure
obsession with nightmarish fantasies about rats occurred.
of it. If Rat Man didn’t die in the Great War, there was a
He used to work with a lieutenant who was known to have a
chance to test him further. However, due to his unexpected
sadistic streak and to be a defender of corporal punishment.
death, the case had to be closed, leaving others curious about
The lieutenant, one day, relayed to him a particularly cruel
his case study.
form of punishment that was called “Rat Torture”. It
involved placing a container of live rats on a person who
was lying down. The rats would seek to escape confinement
by digging through the victim. This horrifying cruelty was
repulsive to him. That’s how he became the subject of his

Ernst Lanzer, an Austrian lawyer, was born in Vienna on
January 22, 1878. He was one of the seven children in his
family. In 1874, he enrolled in the Law Faculty of the
University of Vienna and completed his doctorate ten years
later.
During military maneuvers from August 11 to September
1907, Lanzer first suffered from his peculiar obsession with
rats. He sought out Sigmund Freud on October 1st, 1907, after
being impressed by Freud’s discussion of “curious verbal
associations”. Although Lanzer claimed that hydrotherapy, a
popular activity at the time that involved bathing, helped
with his problem, Freud realized that it had likely been of
help.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-
pictures-and-press-releases/lanzer-ernst-1878-1918
obsessive thoughts and he started to fear it happening to his
partner or his father. Once the idea entered his mind, he
was unable to placate the irrational fear of this happening
to his friend or a relative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_torture
This irrational fear was further demonstrated when he lost
his pince-nez (bifocals) and placed a new order. The parcel
collector from the post office was expected to pay for it. Rat
Man’s colleague informed him that another lieutenant had
paid the fee for him and that he should pay him back. Rat
Man irrationally convinced himself that he must personally
pay back the lieutenant or else his friend would receive rat
torture. When he wanted to pay the money, the lieutenant
declined to take the money, because he had yet to pay the
post office. Rat Man thought that not paying the money
would result in rat torture.
Result
According to Freud’s psychodynamic theory of wish
fulfillment, Rat Man’s sexual desire originated from his id, a
component of personality present from birth, before the ego
and superego which prevent the desire of the id. When the
superego began to influence his thoughts, Rat Man self-
blamed for having experienced such desires. He feared his
parents knowing his thoughts; he felt discomfort at having had
that kind of wish. Once he wished his father would die and
then he would inherit his fortune, become rich, and then could
marry the woman he loved, before shaming himself for having
such thoughts.
Reference
Freud, S. and Rieff, P. (2008). Three Case Histories. New York,
NY: Touchstone.
Freud, Sigmund. (1909b). Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old
boy. SE, 10: 1-149.
——. (1909d). Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis. SE,
10: 151-318.
Mahony, Patrick J. (1992). Freud and the Rat Man. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Nunberg, Hermann, and Federn, Ernst (1962-1975). Minutes of
the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. New York: International
Universities Press.