Fifteenth Session

Richard said that he had expected Mummy, but she did not come because of a sore throat; he was disappointed, but what he was mainly upset about was that Mummy was ill. He began to play. Many details were similar to those described in the previous session. He moved the swings, making different groups, returning again and again to the arrangement in which two figures (sometimes represented by animals) were together in one truck and a third in the next truck. Then suddenly a little toy dog jumped into one of the trucks and threw out the ‘minister’ (Note I). Richard then put him on the roof. The children were going for pleasure trips by themselves in both trains, then decided to take the pink mother with them. He said the trains would go through the station safely, but the figures began to fall down, and in the end the ‘electric’ train ran over everything and was the only survivor (Note II). As in the preceding session, he pushed the toys aside after the ‘disaster’ and said he did not like playing. Richard eagerly began to draw and became more lively and less depressed.…1 He first finished Drawing 6, adding a few details and pointing them out to Mrs K.: he coloured the octopus red, and gave it a mouth. He told Mrs K. that the two fishes were whispering. They were teasing the octopus because it tickled them with its tentacles. The octopus was very hungry and wanted food. Richard said, while colouring the starfishes, that now he was going to ‘make the babies alive’;2 so far they had only been ‘jelly’. The two tiny ones between the plants were not yet quite