Session

(Monday, March 15, 1999)

When I greet Sam in the waiting room, he looks tired. I feel the distance between us from two days of separation. He is tentative, glad to see me, but he does not seem connected as one separate person to another. He greets me with a little smile, half to himself and half to me. He picks up his backpack and comes in. In the consulting room he leaves his backpack on the couch and signs, Stop, putting two hands up, and says the word “toys.” He repeats the gesture-word combination a few times, looking straight at me. I am having trouble connecting to him; he has never done anything like this before, and I am suddenly distracted, thinking that I will be writing up this session for today's meeting and I don't know what is going on. When that moment passes, I am aware of a very familiar reaction to this beginning. I think that he appears to be earnestly communicating, but not in a language I immediately understand. This seems like a softer version of the insistence on omnipotence; I should not need to be told because I am in his mind with him. I indicate that I don't know what the sign means. He repeats it again. I think that he means that he has no toys with him. I say that and I add, “Maybe you want me to understand your signs to be sure I am still with you after this whole long weekend.” He responds by making a new sign, a rotation of the arms, and says, “Yes toys. This means ‘yes toys,’ that means ‘no toys.’” His speech has the quality of being partly communication to another person, partly working something out for himself. And it seems that he wishes I was just automatically in his mind with him, all the time.

Then he opens his backpack and takes out drawings and his school folder. He lets them fall with feigned casualness onto the couch. I know it is not casual at all; he almost never shows his work, and I know he is usually ashamed of it. He picks one drawing up, the simplest face, and, surprisingly,