Eighty-Ninth Session

My notes on this session are rather short. This is largely due to the fact that Richard brought little material on that day. There were long breaks and he was obviously under the full impact of the depression preceding the parting. No doubt my refusal, in the previous session, to support his intention to go with me to London had increased his depression and anxiety about my leaving him. It was pouring with rain, which in itself was always a cause—though much less at this stage—for Richard to feel depressed. Mrs K. had a waterproof hood on.

Richard said she looked very pretty when he met her outside the playroom. He added that though she looked sweet, it was not like a young lady but sweet in the way an old lady might look. But he at once asked whether she minded his saying that, and whether she felt hurt by it. He inquired whether Mrs K. was going to go down to the village after the session. (This was particularly important to him because this was one of the days when he was going home by bus; when Mrs K. came back from her shopping, she would pass by the bus stop when Richard had already got into the bus and he would be able to wave to her.)… Richard said he did not want to see the awful rain and asked Mrs K. to help him pull the curtains. He turned on the light and switched on the fire and said that now it was nice and cosy in the playroom.

Mrs K. reminded him that he had on the previous day thrown out the poisonous Daddy-genital (the poppy) and that the ‘nasty rain’ had often been in his mind connected with the bad urine produced by it. He wanted to keep that bad genital out of himself as well as out of Mrs K., and then he would feel that he could be with her without the bad internal Hitler interfering. He wanted to have Mummy by herself, not mixed up with Daddy inside her, so that he could really trust her fully (Note I).

Richard said that he knew that Mrs K. rang his Mummy the previous night and he asked what she had discussed with h