Rat Man
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
"Rat Man" was the nickname given by Sigmund Freud to a patient whose 'case history' was published as Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose ['Notes Upon A Case Of Obsessional Neurosis'] (1909). The nickname derives from the fact that one of the patient's symptoms was an obsessive fantasy concerning two people close to him, in which a pot of rats was fastened to their buttocks to gnaw into the anus.
To protect the anonymity of patients, psychoanalytic case-studies would usually withhold or disguise the names of the individuals concerned ('Anna O'; 'Little Hans'; 'Wolf Man', etc.). Recent researchers have decided that the 'Rat Man' was in fact Ernst Lanzer (1878–1914) -- though many other sources maintain that the man's name was Paul Lorenz .
