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Valeria is clearly fortunate to have the careful attention and understanding of her analyst who assists her at two different points in her life, some ten years apart. The eight-year-old girl would have been contending with developmental issues related to latency and the advent of puberty, which for girls can occur as young as nine. As an 18-year-old, Valeria would be in late adolescence and facing the tasks associated with separating from her family, exploring intimacy and sexuality, and thinking about her desires for her future. That she later sought help shows the internal containing function that her analyst provided her and that she again hopes to rely on during this newer phase of her life when launching into adulthood is salient.
Early developmental issues include that Valeria's mother did not want her and that Valeria had a nanny providing care around the clock. This sort of family constellation raises questions about mother's intrapsychic problems with guilt and hatred. While we do not know why the nanny was needed so much, 24 hours a day, a potential function of such a caretaker can be to keep a child away from a parent. When there is a possibility of a parent having unconscious murderous feelings toward a child, this parent may feel compelled to create circumstances of daily life that ensure there will be distance between parent and child. This interpersonal avoidance relieves a parent from facing their own shadowy material about their child, who is subsequently left confused and bewildered by the meanings of such projections.