Screaming from Birth: Therapeutic Explorations of a Two Year Old's Failure to Find A Maternal Lap

In this paper I shall attempt to describe and discuss some initial consultations with a two year old boy and his parents who were referred to a child guidance clinic when all other medical interventions failed to deal with the child's incessant screaming. Christopher was described as a child who had been screaming virtually from birth. The Paediatric Registrar at the time wrote to the Consultant Psychiatrist saying that she was surprised that his mother had not battered this child long ago. At the time of the referral he was on strong tranquillising and sleeping drugs and had even been hospitalised for a week when a year old in order to investigate organic causes - probably too, to offer some relief to his distraught and persecuted parents.

Very little was understood about the origins of the screaming and how ultimately a stop could be made. Medical investigations and various suggestions about techniques of managing the situation had very little impact. When I undertook to see Christopher and his parents I was very open as to how I would proceed with the exploration of the problem(s).

Unfortunately the first meeting was arranged on a day of torrential rain, so they arrived three quarters of an hour late. Christopher appeared then to me as a large, pale, strained looking two year old, with small beady blue eyes, stocky but uncertain posture and a whiny and irritable manner, probably exacerbated by the long wet uncomfortable journey. His parents looked very strained as well as drenched, so the session began with their apologies to me for their late arrival and mine to them for not being able to see them for very long, because I knew well the conditions that had delayed them. Time taken for unbuttoning coats and depositing bags seemed a necessary practical prelude to opening up to the problems with which they had come. We made a triangle with the parents on the two large armchairs and myself in the desk chair.

Christopher immediately made for the box of