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Natalie is 7-years-old, the third of four children. She comes into the waiting room with mother with an anxious smile revealing some missing teeth. She is quite a slight child. Natalie comes into the consulting room with me and looks around uncertainly, not knowing where to sit or what to do. I offer her one of the children's chairs and she accepts with relief.
The box is open on the table, and there is some paper; Natalie takes the crayons, carefully pulling out each colour that she wants. She draws a kind of frame like the curtains for a stage. She spends quite a bit of time on this part of the drawing. She then draws a child sitting in a big chair at a table with a plate and cutlery set on it. I ask her who it is, she draws the hair and says it is a girl in a tracksuit eating lunch. I wonder if it is her, all by herself. Natalie looks at me uncertainly.
I ask her if she knows why her mother and father have brought her to see me and why they have come to talk to me about their worries about her. She says, ‘My parents can't handle me when I'm crying and my tummy aches and I don't want to go to language classes. They pull me but I don't want to move and they can't.’
I say, ‘Maybe you have cross feelings that come out as your tummy-ache, it is a way of showing that you are feeling unhappy.’ Natalie nods. I talk to her about her picture: the little girl seems to be sitting in a very grown-up chair; it looks like a theatre with