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It is a great honor for me to comment, in memory of Ted Becker, upon Dr. Keable's case, formerly supervised by him. Ted Becker was for me the consummate child analyst and teacher. True, Ted did not write much, but it is in his voice that we all speak. And it is his voice we honor here. I had the privilege, prior to my analytic training here at the New York Institute, of knowing Ted at the Einstein residency program in the late sixties, where he supervised and taught a continuous case seminar. Ted's voice can still be heard at Einstein as well.
Ted was a master of unraveling the complexities presented by children. A difficult child patient, such as Dr. Keable presented here, would often be turned down as a candidate for psychoanalysis because she was “too disturbed” or had “poor ego strengths.” Such aspects would not deter Ted Becker from beginning analysis when he thought it was indicated. With Ted, it was never a hesitant “Let's give it a try.” It was “Psychoanalysis is indicated.” These decisions for Ted were informed by his grasp of Mrs. Bornstein's ideas about the analysis of defense in child analysis. To me, this is the road that leads to effective technique in the handling of transference in child analysis. Dr. Keable gives us a very rich case scenario using Ted's voice in the analysis of defense, and her own voice in the analysis of transference. It is on these themes that I will focus my remarks.
C is 7-year-old Arabic-French girl who is hyperactive and oppositional at school. She has a sadistic mother but a loving and close father. She is not initially described as anxious or depressed, although I would think she probably had been so since age 31/2. At that age