Key study: Freud (1909) Little Hans

Aim: to describe and explain Hans's phobia (extreme fear) of horses, and his recovery.
Participant: one boy, Hans, aged about 5, living in Vienna.
Procedure: a case study. Hans's father, a supporter of Freud's ideas, recorded Hans's behaviour, conversations, dreams and fantasies over several years and sent reports to Freud in letters. Freud analysed them and met Hans only briefly.
Hans developed a fear that a horse would bite him or fall down, after seeing a horse pulling a bus fall over in the street. He was especially afraid of horses with black around their mouths and blinkers on their eyes.

Freud interpreted the phobia using the Oedipus complex: Hans had unconscious wishes for his mother and saw his father as a rival, so he feared his father.
The horse symbolised his father: the black around the mouth was like his father's moustache, and the blinkers like his glasses. The fear of the father had been displaced onto horses.
Giraffe fantasy: Hans imagined a big giraffe and a crumpled giraffe; he took away the crumpled one and sat on it, and the big one cried out. Freud saw the big giraffe as the father and the crumpled one as the mother.
Plumber fantasy: a plumber took away Hans's bottom and 'widdler' and gave him bigger ones. Freud saw this as Hans identifying with his father, resolving the Oedipus complex. The phobia then faded.
Conclusion: Freud claimed the case supported the Oedipus complex and showed that dreams and fantasies reveal unconscious wishes.

Strengths: a case study gives rich, detailed (qualitative) data over a long time. It shows how dream and fantasy analysis can be used in practice. Hans grew up to be a healthy adult, which suggests the treatment did no harm.
Weaknesses: it is about one child, so it cannot be generalised. The father collected the data and already believed Freud's ideas, so there may be bias and leading questions. Freud's interpretation is subjective: the phobia could be explained more simply, for example by classical conditioning after seeing the horse fall. Ethical issues: a young child's private thoughts were analysed and published.