[Analysis of a laborer with homicidal impulses]

The author describes the case of a patient from a working-class background who solicited psychoanalytic treatment because of his compulsive fear of killing his son, a phenomenon accompanied by idées fixes, attacks of jealousy and multiple psychical ailments. During treatment it became apparent that the impulse to kill was in fact directed at the patient's twin brother, who as first-born was invested in the fantasy of the patient with the superiority that he himself had been denied, thus driving him into a passive/feminine identification with his weak father. Against this background the homosexuality taboo is particularly operative.