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Rat-man - The 'Rat Man' was a pseudonym given by Sigmund Freud to one of his patients, Ernst Lanzer, to protect his anonymity when his case study was published.
The case study was published in 1909 in German, and entitled (2002 translation) "Some Remarks on a Case of Obsessive-compulsive Neurosis." Freud saw this patient for about a year, and considered the treatment a success. The patient presented with obsessional thoughts and with behaviors which he felt compelled to carry out. The thought for which the case received its name was the idea that a punishment having to do with rats eating away at one's body might happen to someone who was dear to him, specifically his father or woman who he admired. Freud theorized that this and similar thoughts were produced by conflicts consisting of the combination of loving and aggressive impulses relating to these people. He believed that they began with sexual experiences of infancy, including punishment for sexual behaviors, and the vicissitudes of sexual curiosity. In addition, the symptoms were believed to keep the patient from needing to make difficult decisions in his current life, and to ward off the anxiety which would be involved in experiencing the angry and aggressive impulses directly. The patient's older sister and father had died, and these losses were considered, along with his suicidal thoughts and his tendency to form verbal associations and symbolic meanings. Long term follow-up of this case was not possible, because the patient was killed in World War I. Current conceptions of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder focus on some circuits of brain centers which appear to become "stuck" and on the neurotransmitter serotonin. OCD is still seen to be related to anxiety. *Rat-Man is also a character of a popular italian comic book.
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