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In commenting on this vignette of Lizzie’s child psychotherapy treatment, it is helpful to keep three contrasting perspectives in mind simultaneously: phenomenology (the structure of conscious experience), psychoanalysis and neuropsychology.
We learn that Lizzie seems to progress, then stops and regresses. This going towards progression, stopping and regression also appears in the first session and is picked up by the therapist. We wonder ‘why?’ and ‘what’s going on?’. Lizzie comes with her father and is waiting with him for the therapist who it seems she had met before. Is Lizzie showing the therapist her relationship with father and her terms of engagement? The therapist comments, ‘Dad sees me and calls to Lizzie, who at once starts running the other way. Dad quickly catches up with her and easily turns her back to face me’.
What is Lizzie showing the therapist? … How she acts with father who is embedded in doing things for her, not waiting nor curious to see what happens? It seems Lizzie’s implicit habit of running away and father following her is a possible identification with her anxiety towards change and help.
Does father want Lizzie to develop and to be separate from him? Can he stand this? With questions, he too receives attention and another set of duties which he again performs. It seems he is eager to follow and to do but as a present father appears anxious about how to manage her and so treats her as a much younger
child, even more, he almost seems frightened of Lizzie, or at least of what she might do next.
Let’s pause here. In this interaction between Lizzie, therapist and a father who doesn’t seem to be a confident adult figure Lizzie can identify with, non-verbal communication prevails. What does father’s presence have to do with verbal development? According to Lacan, acquiring language is part and parc