You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The waiting room position of mother alongside Grace is reminiscent of how mothers with babies in special care units are often sitting alongside, not quite present in the relationship. The waiting room also highlights the timelessness and the relentless waiting so central to the experience of having a premature baby. ‘Like watching wet paint dry.’ The therapist's sense of Grace being swamped in her school uniform also evokes an image of a premature baby too small for clothes and not yet in her own body. The tone of the first session, the cat sounds and hooting owls also depict a preverbal scene, where Grace's experiences seem so primitive that she has no words for them. Grace spells out that the cat's needs are basic, those of comfort, food and sleep, a clear reference to the simple but essential requirements of a baby.
The development of the play with the cat taking charge seems important in that Grace is attempting to master a situation, whereas in fact her early infancy would have been an experience of feeling overwhelmed and never being in charge, constantly being administered to and at the mercy of professionals. There is a sense of Grace working out her own capacities to know and regulate her own body for the first time, when she speaks of the cat “It needs to be in charge of how much light and sound …” The imagery of the cat also recalls a horror of not having been the perfect human baby her family might have wished for but rather an undeveloped animal.
The arrival of another kitten and then many babies in the play enables the shadow of the original baby to be more fully explored. As if it is only with the arrival of a full term healthy babying that the trauma of the premature baby can be realised. It is striking that Grace is referred for her constipation difficulties at the time of her sister's birth. Grace is emotionally ‘clogged up’