Walking

Freudian Dictionary

Locomotion is inhibited in many neurotic states by antipathy to walking and weakness in walking: the hysterical disability makes use of paralysis of the motor apparatus or creates a specific suspension of this one function of the latter (abasia). Particularly characteristic are the difficulties of locomotion brought about by the interpolation of definite conditions as prerequisites, the non-fulfillment of which evokes anxiety (phobia) .... If walking has become a symbolic substitute for stamping on the body of Mother Earth, then ... walking will be abstained from, because it is as though forbidden sexual behavior were thereby indulged in.