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In this paper Miranda Davies sets out to examine the defensive patterns of a ten-year-old boy with particular reference to his defences of the self. It was written for general consumption and contains theoretical explanations familiar to most Jungians. Its merit lies not only in the strikingly evocative material but also in the way she compares and contrasts ego defences, as outlined by Anna Freud, with Melanie Klein's more primitive defences and Fordham's defences of the self.
Her patient, Peter, was a fragile boy for whom the outside world held any number of terrors. In addition he displayed a number of autistic-like ‘habits’ which included convulsive head-nodding and collar-chewing.
Once into the clinical work one quickly gets caught up in the manic and perilous quality of the material as this Houdini character successfully negotiates all manner of tests: racing against time, death-defying feats, rescues, obstacle courses, cosmic wars. Yet the lasting impression is a depressing one, of hopelessness and despair. His achievements offer no lasting satisfaction; once he is successful they are almost immediately replaced by other daunting challenges. At one point he tells his analyst about the crisis when he was a baby. ‘I couldn't breathe, and in ten seconds I would have died’. Here he is referring to the collapse of his oesophagus which occurred at three weeks and left him unable to breathe. A less severe collapse occurred several weeks later.
Although Peter made good progress during his short analysis, it is his impenetrability that stands out. He is locked away behind his body armour unable and unwilling to let much in or out. The author explains how he could not take in her mind and experience it as the breast: ‘… good aspects of the analysis were experienced as part of the breast that had been created out of the self through idealisation’.
This paper made me wonder about the role of interpretation. It seems to me that patients such as Peter draw more heavily on anal