Rat Man

Who was Rat Man?

"Rat Man" was the nickname given by Sigmund Freud to a patient whose "case history" was published as Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose ['Notes Upon A Case of Obsessional Neurosis']. The nickname derives from the fact that the patient developed a series of obsessive fantasies in which, in Freud's words, "rats had acquired a series of symbolic meanings, to which...fresh ones were continually being added".

To protect the anonymity of patients, psychoanalytic case-studies would usually withhold or disguise the names of the individuals concerned. Recent researchers have decided that the "Rat Man" was in fact a clever lawyer named Ernst Lanzer —though many other sources maintain that the man's name was Paul Lorenz.