"Rat Man"

This so far is one of the most odd and confusing cases I have yet to read about OCD!  This reading involves a case that Freud himself analyzed, and it consists of all the notes Freud wrote down about each session that he had with the “Rat Man”.   The reason for his weird name is that he was told a terrifying story of a punishment including rats digging their way into a criminal’s anus from a pot held on their buttocks, and he was tormented by this fear.  Dr. Lorenz, the “Rat Man”, had a very odd case of OCD, and had suffered from obsessions since his childhood.  From my understanding, some of his obsessions included the fear that his father might die, even though he was already dead, and that something bad would happen to the woman he admired, or that he would harm her himself.  As I read farther into the reading, Freud takes note of the many bizarre dreams the Rat Man had, many of them being sexual.  Another subject that was frequently brought up was the Rat man’s masturbation.  I had trouble relating this to everything else, but I think it was maybe a compulsion that he did in response to some of his obsessions.  What was so confusing to me was the fact that there were so many different dreams and fantasies the Rat Man had and it wasn’t in any particular order, rather he jumped around from topic to topic throughout each session.  What I find interesting is the fact that Freud was able to take everything the Rat Man said and analyze it in some way.  Based on reading Freud’s notes on this case, I know I could never make any sense to the Rat man’s odd obsessions.