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“THE MONSTER HAD BLACK HAIR, DARK EYES AND BLACK GLASSES, and huge teeth made to eat kids, like you, Dr Anzieu!” said Thomas, a 5-year-old terrified boy who cannot sleep anymore since he saw a monster in his closet. The same day he also had seen his mother breastfeeding his newborn sister.
I became the black witch who dreamed of eating Thomas when, through his positive transference with me, he was able to make a picture of his fears. And we played for weeks at chasing each other. It was a good play since Thomas didn't have any ability to play before coming into therapy.
The contemporary clinical work with children shows the increasing of behavioral problems and symptoms that the psychoanalysts understand as a failure in the early symbolization process. The psychic functioning in the young child lacks the possibility for representation, with all the consequences on separation issues, when the absent mother cannot be represented in the child's mind, and the consequences on the figuration of the anxieties, when fear, distress, and anguish cannot be organized through representations and symbolizations.
This is the role of the psychoanalyst, to help young patients to find a new ability for symbolization and representation that will allow them to use the language in a very rich way and to contain and elaborate their anxieties.
Maurice Sendak's wonderful book Where the Wild Things Are has been read by millions of adults to their children. This is the story of a child in a destructive rage, animated by oral fantasies; the child's frustration at being punished results in a dream-like state where the fantasy is omnipotent. Through an act of creation, the child is able to transform the rage, to feel his sadness and his need for love, and to resume his relationship with his mother. Sendak addressed the children' problems as being in a rage at their mother, depressed or unavailable mother, who cannot recognize her child's state of mind.
He maintained the optimistic vi