Rat Man

"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). This was the second of six case histories that Freud published, and the first in which he claimed that the patient had been cured by psychoanalysis.

The nickname derives from the fact that among the patient's many compulsions was an obsession with nightmarish fantasies about rats.

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 a clever lawyer named Ernst Lanzer (1878–1914)—though many other sources maintain that the man's name was Paul Lorenz.

Lanzer first came to Freud in October 1907 complaining of obsessive fears and compulsive impulses. Freud treated his patient for a little over three months on a regular daily basis. The treatment was irregular for the next three months and sporadic, at best, after that.

Lanzer's principal fear was that something terrible was going to happen to his father and a lady friend (who later became his wife). His fear had grown out of an account he heard from a fellow army officer concerning about a Chinese torture method, in which a large pot, containing a live rat, was strapped to the buttocks of the victim, and the rat encouraged by a red-hot poker to gnaw his way out through the victim's anus.

Lanzer claimed that he fantasized about murder and suicide, and developed a number of compulsive irrational behavior patterns. For example, he mentioned his habit of opening the door to his flat between 12 midnight and 1:00 A.M., apparently so that his father's ghost could enter. Lanzer would then stare at his penis, some times using a mirror.

Freud encouraged Lanzer to discuss details of his sex life (such as his first efforts at masturbation at age 20) and focused on a number of verbal associations with the word 'Ratten' ('rats'). According to Freud's analysis, Lanzer unconsciously identified himself with rats. Lanzer was unconsciously fantasizing that he - a rat and a biter - was having anal intercourse with his father and with his lady friend.

Lanzer was verbally clever and himself introduced Freud to Nietzsche's phrase (which Freud would later cite) "'I did this,' says my Memory. 'I cannot have done this,' says my Pride, and remains inexorable. In the end – Memory yields". Freud would retell the saying more than once, and it would be taken up by later therapists such as Fritz Perls.

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