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Stephen was 5 years, 3 months when his parents brought him for consultation because of inordinate clinging to his mother. Other symptoms were present as well: stool withholding, refusal to use the toilet for bowel movements, phobias for insects and various animals (especially roaring and biting ones like lions and dogs), nightly bed-wetting, and babyish behavior. The refusal to allow mother to leave alarmed them, because Stephen was to begin first grade, and attendance at school required a bus ride. Even if he got to school, how would he remain?
I first saw him in the fall. The problems had begun in the summer, when he was to attend a day camp. He made it through the first couple of days of camp, but panic gradually overcame him, and he refused to leave home. At camp he appeared frightened. At home he withheld stool, passing it in the bathtub as mother bathed him. He refused to allow mother to leave his side, crying in protest and terror if she attempted to do so.
The parents were surprised, frightened, and terribly disillusioned by this sudden regression in Stephen's behavior. Up until then, he had been developing normally so far as they were concerned, except that he was a bit clumsy and awkward physically. He was exceptionally bright and intellectually precocious, able to read since he was 3 years old. He had a vivid fantasy life, then involving superheroes. The Hulk was a favorite of his (a figure with a secret identity: a man who becomes, when offended or angry, a huge and powerful figure who cannot be destroyed).
He had friends. He had been able to separate without difficulty from his mother when he attended nursery school at 3 years of age.