The spit and image: a psychoanalytic dissection of a colloquial expression

"He is the spit of his father" or "he is the spit and image of his father" is a colloquial expression that has graced informal English for many centuries. When a "spitting image" made an entrance in the manifest content of an analysand's dream, it became possible to add a psychoanalytic point of view to an etymological and anthropological record. After discussing both this clinical case and an "anthropological case history," the author examines the subtle but complex genesis of this colloquial expression from a speculative applied psychoanalytic perspective.