“A
natural aversion in healthy people for mice or dogs need be no indication of
zoophobia. But the wild and ecstatic terror that grips some women in the
presence of a mouse or before the amiable advances of a house-dog tells a story
of strange and perverse fancy. These horrors of animals can be so astounding
that they involve an element almost magical. I have seen a woman so morbidly
afraid of cats that she could recognise a feline presence the moment she crossed
a strange threshold, and be unable to complete her call.
“Sometimes
this phobia undergoes a transformation, and the animal feared is ruthlessly
hunted down. A well-known psycho-pathologist of my acquaintance has a
tremendous aversion to cats (against which not even his own precise
understanding of his malady is proof), and destroys them without compunction.
He has been known to drive his car onto the sidewalk in wild pursuit of some
inoffensive tabby. Creatures of the insect world often inspire this strange
fear in humans, and the spider thus becomes a thing of loathing. It is possible
that its habits of trapping and blood-sucking are projected as somewhat violent
symbols of suppressed desires.
“The
theory is that a victim of zoophobia fears a symbol of an unconscious desire.
What one is inhibited from loving may be transformed by the unconscious into an
object of hatred. So, the old maid violently afraid of mice shudders at the
thought of contact with a man – yet desires it. Conversely, at times it is the
human that is feared, and a fantastic attachment for a lesser creature springs
up, giving outlet to the flames of desire. In Balzac’s ‘A Passion in the Desert’, a female panther is the object of such
an unnatural love on the part of the man.”
John Vassos
New York City
May 25th, 1931
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