Little Arpad

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Little Arpad [Bandi, 'Rooster Man'] is the name given to a case history of a child with a rooster identification and fetish by the psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi.

Contents

Observation

In his article of 1913 in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, “A Little Chant'cleer”, Ferenczi reported on the case of a child, attacked by a rooster, who subsequently took on the role of a rooster wherever possible, [1] in an early example of identification with the aggressor. [2] He either imitated directly, or spoke only about, roosters; and played solely with toy roosters. [3]

Freud's use

Freud used the example of Little Arpad, along with that of Little Hans, to support his theory of the father as totem in his 1913 book Totem and Taboo . He would later be criticised by Peter Gay for neglecting the at least equally strong evidence concerning Arpad's view of his mother: “One should put my mother into a pot and cook her, then there would be a preserved mother and I could eat her”. [4]

Choice of songs

Arpad's choice of songs to sing was also determined by his rooster-fetish – supporting Freud's theory as expressed in his 1901 work The Psychopathology of Everyday Life . [5]

See also

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References

  1. R. Lockwood, Cruelty to Animal and Interpersonal Violence (1998) p. 8
  2. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (1946) p. 481 and p. 612
  3. A. Tridon, Psychoanalysis and Behaviour (2013 [1921]) p. 69-73
  4. Quoted in P. Gay, Freud (1989) p. 335
  5. A Child's Favorite Song Recall

Further reading