Commentary by a child and adolescent psychotherapist trained at the Tavistock Clinic

We are told in the introduction that Jane has difficulty in experiencing being separate. This is apparent right from the start in the waiting room. The scene is set, Jane is copying a drawing, not creating one and she leaves her foster mother without saying goodbye. We can wonder whether she denies the separation or just does not feel separate? Once in the room it is as if the therapist then replicates Jane's feelings, Jane's ‘slopping down', the therapist's ‘sinking feeling’ and her later feeling of being invaded. There is clearly in work with this little girl a sense that the boundaries between people, the differences and/or similarities, are of great importance. I therefore look to the session to see where the therapist can give the child a taste of being with somebody else, of being interested in being with another, and of exploring the question of ‘Can you be together but separate?’

We can see by Jane's agenda ‘Now what shall I think about?’ that she has a sense of the kind of person the therapist is, somebody who is interested in thinking. There is some idea of separateness here. But the question seems also to be how can Jane be somebody who thinks? Her contrived manner and slightly self conscious performance