title: "Totem and Taboo" in a latency boy.
abstract: Against the background of Freud's "Totem and Taboo" the case of a seven-year-old boy is discusses, focusing on his identification with a cat. Guided by Freud's dialectic thinking and his discussion of the phenomena of patriarchy and matriarchy, one is led to contemplate the totemism of a matriarchally oriented boy. The attempt to understand this child's pathology is based upon the concept of the specificity of a developmental phase. In the light of anthropological data, clinical phenomena are evaluated ontogenetically, in analogy with the recapitulation hypothesis.
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D005619:Freudian Theory; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D007837:Latency Period, Psychological; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D011606:Psychosexual Development; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D012917:Social Adjustment; D013609:Taboo