primal scene (Urszene) In psychoanalysis, the child’s first witnessing of its parents having sexual intercourse. The child makes a threefold interpretation of the act, according to Freud, Sigmund: first, they interpret it as an act of aggression on the part of the father; second, while it excites them, it also induces fear of castration; third, the child assumes it is anal sex. Freud initially insisted that the primal scene was actual---that the child had to actually witness the event---but later came to realize that it could just as well be virtual, a figment of the imagination.