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Phobia

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A [[phobia]] is usually defined in [[psychiatry]] as an extreme '''[[fear]]''' of a [[particular ]] [[object ]] (such as an [[animal]]) or a particular [[situation ]] (such as leaving the home).
Those who suffer from a phobia [[experience ]] [[Anxiety]] if they [[encounter ]] the phobic object or are placed in the feared situation, and develop 'avoidance strategies' so as to prevent this from happening.
These avoidance strategies may become so elaborate that the [[subject]]'s [[life ]] is severely restricted.
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[[Freud]]'s most important contribution to the study of phobias concerned a young boy whom he dubbed Little [[Hans]].
Shortly before his fifth birthday, Hans developed a violent fear of horses and became unwilling to go outdoors lest he encounter one in the street.
In his [[case ]] study of Hans, Freud distinguished between the initial onset of anxiety (which was not attached to any object) and the ensuing fear which was focused specifically on horses; only the latter constituted the phobia proper.
Freud argued that the anxiety was the transformation of [[sexual ]] excitement generated in Hans by his [[relationship ]] with his [[mother]], and that the horses represented his [[father ]] who Hans feared would punish him.<ref>{{SF}} 1909b</ref>
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[[Lacan]], in his [[seminar ]] of 1956-7, offers a detailed [[reading ]] of the case of [[Little Hans]], and proposes his own view of phobia.
Following Freud, he stresses the [[difference ]] between phobia and anxiety: anxiety appears first, and the phobia is a defensive [[formation ]] which turns the anxiety into fear by focusing it on a specific object.<ref>{{S4}} pp. 207, 400</ref>
However, rather than [[identifying ]] the phobic object as a [[representative ]] of the father, as Freud does, Lacan argues that the fundamental characteristic of the phobic object is that it does not simply [[represent ]] one person but represents different [[people ]] in turn.<ref>{{S4}} pp. 283-8</ref>
Lacan points out the extremely diverse ways in which Hans describes the feared horse at different moments of his phobia; for example, at one point Hans is afraid that a horse will bite him and at [[another ]] [[moment ]] that a horse will fall down.<ref>{{S4}} p. 305-6</ref>
At each of these different moments, Lacan argues, the horse represents a different person in Hans's life.<ref>{{S4}} p. 307</ref>
The horse thus functions not as the equivalent of a sole [[signified ]] but as a [[signifier ]] which has no univocal [[sense ]] and is [[displaced ]] onto different signifieds in turn<ref>{{S4}} p. 288</ref>
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Lacan argues that Hans develops the horse phobia because his [[Real]] father fails to intervene as the [[agent ]] of [[castration]], which is his proper [[role ]] in the [[Oedipus Complex]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 212</ref>
When his [[sexuality ]] begins to make itself felt in [[infantile ]] [[masturbation]], the [[preoedipal ]] [[triangle ]] (mother-[[child]]-[[Imaginary]] [[phallus]]) is transformed from [[being ]] Hans's source of [[enjoyment ]] into something that provokes anxiety in him.
The [[intervention ]] of the [[Real]] father would have saved Hans from this anxiety by [[Symbolic]]ally [[castrating ]] him, but in the [[absence ]] of this intervention Hans is [[forced ]] to find a [[substitute ]] in the phobia.
The phobia functions by using an [[Imaginary]] object (the horse) to reorganise the [[Symbolic]] [[world ]] of Hans and thus [[help ]] him to make the passage from the [[Imaginary]] to the [[Symbolic]] [[order]]<ref>{{S4}} pp. 230, 245-6, 284</ref>
Far from being a purely [[negative ]] phenomenon, then, a phobia makes a [[traumatic ]] situation thinkable, livable, by introducing a [[symbolic]] [[dimension]], even if it is only a provisional solution.<ref>{{S4}} p. 82</ref>
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The phobic object is thus an [[Imaginary]] element which is able to function as a signifier by being used to represent every possible element in the subject's world.
For Hans, the horse represents at different moments his father, his mother, his little sister, his friends, himself, and many [[other ]] things besides.<ref>{{S4}} p. 307</ref>
In the [[process ]] of developing all the permutations possible around 'the signifying crystal of his phobia', little Hans was able to exhaust all the impossibilities that blocked his passage from the [[Imaginary]] to the [[Symbolic]] and thus find a solution to the [[impossible ]] by recourse to a signifying equation.<ref>{{E}} p. 168</ref>
In other [[words]], a phobia plays exactly the same role which Claude LÈvi-[[Strauss ]] assigns to [[myths]], only on the level of the [[individual ]] rather than of [[society]].
What is important in the [[myth]], argues [[Lévi-Strauss]], is not any '[[natural]]' or 'archetal' [[meaning ]] of the isolated elements which make it up, but the way they are combined and re-combined in such a way that while the elements [[change ]] [[position]], the relations between the positions are immutable.<ref>Lévi-Strauss. 1955</ref>
This repeated re-combination of the same elements allows an impossible situation to be faced up to by articulating in turn all the different forms of its [[impossibility]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 330</ref>
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What are the [[practical ]] consequences of Lacan's [[theory ]] in the [[treatment ]] of [[subjects ]] who suffer from phobias? Rather than simply desensitising the subject (as in behavioural [[therapy]]), or simply providing an explanation of the phobic object (e.g. 'the horse is your father'), the treatment should aim at helping the subject to [[work ]] through all the various permutations involving the phobic signifier.
By helping the subject to develop the individual myth in accordance with its own laws, the treatment enables him finally to exhaust all the possible combinations of signifying elements and thus to dissolve the phobia.<ref>{{S4}} p. 402</ref>
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(It should be borne in [[mind ]] that Lacan's [[discussion ]] of the case of Little Hans only explicitly addresses the question of [[childhood ]] phobias, and leaves open the question of whether these remarks also apply to [[adult ]] phobias.)
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As Freud himself noted in his case study of Little Hans, phobias had not previously been assigned any definite position in [[psychiatric ]] nosographies.
He attempted to remedy this uncertainty surrounding the classification of phobia, but his proposed solution is prey to a certain ambiguity.
On the one hand, since phobic [[symptoms ]] can be found among both [[neurotic ]] and [[psychotic ]] subjects, Freud argued that phobias could not be regarded as an 'independent pathological process'.<ref>Freud, 1909b: SE X, l15</ref>
On the other hand, in the same work Freud did isolate a particular [[form ]] of [[neurosis ]] whose central [[symptom ]] is a phobia.
Freud called this new diagnostic [[category ]] 'anxiety [[hysteria]]' in order to distinguish it from 'conversion hysteria' (which Freud had previously referred to simply as 'hysteria').
Freud's remarks are thus ambiguous, implying that phobia can be both a symptom and an underlying [[clinical ]] entity.
The same ambiguity is repeated in Lacan's works, where the question is rephrased in [[terms ]] of whether phobia is a symptom or a [[structure]].
Usually, Lacan distinguishes only two neurotic [[structures ]] (hysteria and [[obsessional ]] neurosis), and describes phobia as a symptom rather than a structure.<ref>{{S4}} p. 285</ref>
However, there are also points in Lacan's work where he lists phobia as a [[third ]] form of neurosis in addition to hysteria and [[obsessional neurosis]], thus implying that there is a phobic structure;<ref>{{E}} p. 321</ref>; in 1961, for example, he describes phobia as "the most radical form of neurosis."<ref>{{S8}} p. 425</ref>
The question is not resolved until the seminar of [[1968]]-9, where Lacan states that One cannot see in it [phobia] a clinical entity but rather a revolving junction [plaque tournante], something that must be elucidated in its relations withthat towards which it usually tends, namely the two great [[orders ]] of neurosis, hysteria and obsessionality, and also the junction which it realises with [[perversion]].<ref>{{JL}} 1968-9</ref>
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Thus phobia is not, according to Lacan, a [[clinical structure ]] on the same level as hysteria and obsessional neurosis, but a gateway which can lead to either of [[them ]] and which also has certain connections with the [[perverse ]] structure.
The link with perversion can be seen in the similarities between the [[fetish ]] and the phobic object, both of which are [[symbolic]] substitutes for a [[missing ]] element and both of which serve to structure the surrounding world.
Furthermore, both phobia and perversion arise from difficulties in the passage from the [[imaginary]] preoedipal triangle to the [[symbolic]] [[Oedipal ]] [[quaternary]].
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