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The '[[primal scene]]' is a [[scene ]] of [[sexual ]] intercourse between the [[parents ]] and observed (or fantasized) by a [[child]], who usually interprets it as an act of violent [[aggression]] on the part of the [[father]].The [[memory]] of the [[primal scene]] feeds into most [[fantasies]], and especially those of [[neurosis|neurotics]], the classic [[case ]] [[history ]] [[being ]] that of [[Freud]]'s '[[Wolf Man]]' [[patient]].<ref>1918</ref>

According to [[Klein]], the child fantasizes that its parents are locked together in permanent intercourse; they merge to [[form ]] the combined parent [[figure]], and torment and destroy one [[another ]] in the act of copulation.

Whether or not the [[primal scene]] is an actual [[memory]] or a [[real ]] [[event ]] or a [[fantasy]] elaborated on the basis of fragmentary observations and suppositions is a question that is not really resolved by [[Freud]].

The expression "[[primal ]] scene" refers to the [[sight ]] of [[sexual relations ]] between the parents, as observed, constructed, and/or fantasized by the child and [[interpreted ]] by the child as a scene of [[violence]]. The scene is not [[understood ]] by the child, remaining enigmatic but at same [[time ]] provoking [[sexual excitement]].

The term appeared for the [[first time ]] in Freud's [[work ]] apropos of the "Wolf Man" case (1918b [1914]), but the [[notion ]] of a sexual memory experienced too early to have been translated into [[verbal ]] [[images]], and thus liable to [[return ]] in the form of conversion [[symptoms ]] or obsessions, was part of his [[thinking ]] as early as 1896, as [[witness ]] his [[letter ]] of May 30 of that year to Wilhelm [[Fliess]], where he evokes a "[[surplus ]] of [[sexuality]]" that "impedes [[translation]]" (1950a, pp. 229-230). Here we are already close to the [[model ]] of the [[trauma ]] and its "deferred" effect. The following year, in his letter to Fliess of May 2, Freud gave the approximate age when in his estimation [[children ]] were liable to "hear things" that they would [[understand ]] only "subsequently" as six or seven months (SE 1, p. 247). The [[subject ]] of the child's witnessing parental coitus came up as well, albeit in an older child, with the case of "Katharina," in the [[Studies on Hysteria ]] (1895d), and Freud evoked it yet again in The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]], with the fantasy of the young man who dreamed of watching his parents copulating during his [[life ]] in the womb (1900a [addition of 1909], pp. 399-400).

Freud persistently strove to decide whether the primal scene was a fantasy or something actually witnessed; above all, he placed increasing emphasis on the child's own fantasy interpretation of the scene as violence visited upon the [[mother ]] by the father. He went so far, in "On the Sexual Theories of Children" (1908c, p. 221), as to find a measure of justification for this interpretation, suggesting that, though the child may exaggerate, the [[perception ]] of a real repugnance towards sexual intercourse on the part of a mother fearful of another pregnancy may be quite accurate. In the case of "Little [[Hans]]," however, the violence was explained in [[terms ]] of a [[prohibition]]: Hans deemed it analogous to "smashing a window-pane or forcing a way into an enclosed [[space]]" (1909b, p. 41).

The fantasy of the primal scene, like the sexual theories of children, is typical in [[character]]: it may be encountered in all neurotics, if not in every [[human ]] being (Freud, 1915f), and it belongs in the [[category ]] of "primal" fantasies. It appears, however, not to have the same force for all individuals. The case history of the Wolf Man gave Freud the opportunity not only to pursue the issue of the [[reality ]] of the primal scene, but also to propose the [[idea ]] that it lay at the root of childhood (and later [[adult]]) [[neurosis]]: the sexual [[development ]] of the child was "positively splintered up by it" (1918b [1914), pp. 43-44). Freud later would later assign a central [[place ]] to the primal scene in his [[analysis ]] of [[Marie Bonaparte]], although in her case the scene took place between her nanny and a groom (Bonaparte, 1950-53).

Looked upon as an actual event rather than as a pure fantasy reconstructed in a retrospective way (as with [[Jung]]'s zurückphantasieren), the primal scene had a much more marked [[traumatic ]] impact, and this led Freud to insist on the "reality" of such scenes, thus returning to the debate over event-driven (or "historical") reality versus [[psychic ]] reality. Beyond the issue of the scene itself, however, it was the [[whole ]] subject of fantasy that was thus raised (in Chapter 5 of the Wolf Man case-history [1918b, pp. 48-60]), discussed in terms that would be picked up by Freud again later in "Constructions in Analysis" (1937d).

It was not merely, in Freud's view, that the [[technique ]] of [[psychoanalysis ]] demanded that fantasies be treated as realities so as to give their evocation all the force it needed, but also that many "real" scenes were not accessible by way of [[recollection]], but solely by way of dreams. Whether a scene was constructed out of elements observed elsewhere and in a different context (for example, [[animal ]] coitus transposed to the parents); reconstituted on the basis of clues (such as bloodstained sheets); or indeed observed directly, but at an age when the child still had not the corresponding verbal images at its disposal; did not fundamentally alter the basic facts of the matter: "I intend on this occasion," wrote Freud, "to close the [[discussion ]] of the reality of the primal scene with a non liquet" (1918b, p. 60).

[[Melanie Klein]]'s view of the primal scene differed from Freud's, for where Freud saw an enigmatic perception of violence, she saw the child's projective fantasies. Klein describes the primal scene in a way closely resembling Freud's definition of the sexual theories of childhood. These wishes of the [[infant ]] abound in hostile and destructive tendencies, but the mother is pictured therein as just as dangerous for the father as the father is for her. The sexual [[relationship ]] between the parents, fantasized as continuous, is also the basis of the "combined-parent figure."

The primal scene is inseparable from the sexual theories of childhood that it serves to create. This disturbing [[representation]], which at once acknowledges and denies the familiar quality of the parents, excludes the child even as it concerns [[them]], as witness the [[libidinal ]] excitement the child feels in response. The [[particularity ]] of the primal scene lies in the fact that the subject experiences in a simultaneous and contradictory way the emergence of the unknown within a familiar [[world]], to which they are bound by vital [[needs]], by expectations of [[pleasure]], and by the [[self]]-[[image ]] that it reflects back to them. The [[lack ]] of common measure between the child's emotional and [[psychosexual ]] [[experience ]] and the [[words ]] that could give an account of the primal scene creates a gulf that the sexual theories of childhood attempt to bridge. A [[sadistic ]] [[reading ]] of the scene combines the child's curiosity [[about ]] both the origin and the end of life in a representation in which [[death ]] and life are indeed fused.

# Bonaparte, Marie. (1950-53). Five copy-books. Translated by Nancy Procter-Gregg. [[London]]: [[Imago]].# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. Part I, SE, 4: 1-338]]