A Boy in Trouble: Internal and External Dangers

Theo presented as a sturdy, intelligent, articulate but, above all, anxious four-year-old boy. He was beset by dangers from the external world: violence, separation of his parents and physical insecurity. These had been internalized and experienced as endangering his ego. His psychic structuralization was being skewed by his identifications with the pathological external reality. His own instinctual strengths were being harnessed to socially unacceptable models and ways of discharge. Unfortunately in this short presentation I have had to focus on a limited number of themes, which distorts the material.

In Theo's first treatment session I encountered a boy in control of his fears, able to articulate them, and aware that I might be of help to him in finding solutions to his problems. It was a satisfactory opening session, but the next day his father kidnapped him. Theo was made a ward of court and was rescued on his way to Greece. Theo's immediate panic-rage was directed primarily at his mother who had not properly protected him. A negative transference dominated the treatment sessions. He regressed to an oral fixation. He attacked me physically, kicking, spitting, throwing furniture at me, and punching me in the stomach as I tried to prevent him from achieving his object of biting me yet again. In projection I was a white-haired witch who would turn him into a frog and gobble him up if he could not eat me first. He showed me the powerful teeth-marks he had made in the plasticine as he told me about a nightmare he had had of a woman with lipstick like blood helping a horrible giant to steal him, leaving him locked forever in a dark room. His mother could not let him have a light at night because she was phobic about live electricity; nor did her presence stop Theo's vicious attacks on me, even in the waiting room. No clarification of his behaviour relating to fear of his safety or even fear of reprisal had any effect. He attempted avoidance; he was phobic of the danger