At the age of five, Hans developed the phobia of horses, which prompted his father to contact Freud for treatment, providing him with extensive information of his conversations with his son. Analysing some anxiety dreams Hans had experienced involving losing his mother, Freud theorised that the young boy had made his mother the focus of his libido. Hans’ father believing there to be a link between his interest in his penis and the phobia, he told his son to stop touching himself but to no avail. However, when Freud was told that Hans did not like horses with black bits around their mouths, he began to believe that the horse symbolised Hans’ father. The evidence for this stance came after Hans’ fear became that of horses falling over and when his father asked him if he thought of daddy when he saw a horse fall over Hans replied that it was possible.
Hans’ phobia started to diminish following two fantasies, one of which saw him married his mother and playing with his own children (replacing the father). Freud concluded that this signalled the resolution of his oedipal conflicts.
Freud believed that this case study gave clear evidence of the castration anxiety and Oedipus complex theories that he had proposed in his theory of psychosexual development.
Strengths and weaknesses of case studies
The biggest strength of a case study is that it provides a great deal of qualitative data that can be useful in discovering the origins and helping to treat abnormal behaviour. In the case of the ‘Little Hans’ study, the special relationship between father and son allowed for the very thorough analysis that took place.
The biggest weakness of a case study is that the results cannot be applied to the general population very easily because the subject of the case study may not have the typical behaviour attributed to the rest of the population. In the case of ‘Little Hans’, the weaknesses are further added to by the fact that Freud was interpreting what were in fact merely Max Graf’s interpretations of Hans phobia due to the fact that Freud only saw the young boy on one or two occasions. Max Graf, being a supporter of Freud’s theories, also asked his son leading questions and may have seen an oedipal conflict where none existed.
Ethics of the ‘Little Hans’ study
Freud gained the consent for the case study of Hans from his father as the child was under the age for giving his consent to take part and there was no need for Freud to have deceived Hans or his father as to the purpose of the study as all parties were quite aware of the investigation into Hans’ phobia. Although there was a great deal of time between the treatment of the phobia and the debriefing given, Hans was debriefed when he visited Freud at the age of 19.
Freud did not tell Hans that he could withdraw from the case study but it would be reasonable to assume that Max Graf knew that he could withdraw his son from the investigation at any time. The information published as part of the case study only included the child’s name (if Hans really was the child’s name) so Freud had respected the confidentiality of his participant, although it may be reasonable to assume that Max Graf again gave permission for the case study to be published.
Freud does seem to have adhered to the ethical guidelines; however, the treatment he gave was not very child friendly and some of the questions that Hans was asked were leading and about subjects that could have caused him distress such as asking about the incident with the falling horse and some of the anxiety dreams.
Questionnaires as an alternative to case studies
It would have been possible for Freud to have conducted his study of Hans using questionnaires with open-ended questions, as it is possible to view questionnaires as nothing more than a written interview. It is possible that questionnaires could have yielded the same amount of detailed information about the child; however, as Hans was only young his father probably would have had to fill in the forms so the information would still have been filtered through his father’s interpretation.
However, as with all methods, questionnaires have their weaknesses and if the questions are not worded correctly and precisely, it is possible that the subject could misinterpret what information is required. It is because of the preciseness of language needed for the questions that producing a questionnaire can be time consuming and costly. It is also possible that the subject could give socially desirable answers to avoid embarrassment.