This paper describes short-term psychotherapeutic intervention with an adolescent girl and her mother by two co-therapists. Intervention revealed an enmeshed, symbiotic relationship with the daughter's periods of mutism reflecting anger towards others, particularly her uncommunicative mother. The daughter's two-year history of hearing ‘voices’ had commenced as her mother's ‘voices’ had ceased, and seemed to represent a ‘magical’ attempt to fuse symbiotically with her. In therapy, as the mother started to talk about her own and her daughter's family background, the daughter became more verbally and emotionally communicative, and her ‘voices’ began to fade. As the daughter came to understand her mother more, and as the mother came to terms with her own past, they began to show some evidence of separating. Two issues were raised by the case: the importance of the initial contact between patient and insititution; and the difficulty in changing symbiotic relationships.