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This is an account of the first six months of Jane's five-times-weekly analysis which she started at the age of four and a half.
Jane was referred by her parents. They are in their late thirties and she is their only child. They wanted help because they found Jane difficult to handle. They described her as needing to have things on her own terms, resistant to doing what was expected, and turning almost everything into a confrontation. She spent most nights in her parents’ bed; either her father would leave and sleep in her bed or she would sleep between them, jammed up against mother. At most meal-times, Jane expected her mother to feed her. Reports from her nursery school added that Jane was a tense, isolated child. She had difficulty in separating from her mother, and was rather aimless, listless and resistant to learning. The teachers noted the parents’ over-protectiveness and tendency to ‘baby’ Jane.
Although from very different backgrounds, the parents have in common that each had a childhood disrupted by separations. In addition, Mrs A suffered some sexual molestation when she was five or six at the hands of an older sister. Both parents are intelligent and personable and eager to do the best for their child.
Mr and Mrs A were still hesitating about starting a family when Mrs A unexpectedly became pregnant. She found the pregnancy difficult, feeling tired and sick. She was admitted to hospital with toxaemia at 7