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This paper deals with some aspects of two years of treatment of a 'schizophrenoid' boy of eleven. This child had suffered from severe asthma since the age of twenty-one months and could neither play nor get along with other children, was rebellious toward his parents, and suffered from grave fears about an impending disaster. Psychiatric evaluation and psychological testing seemed to indicate the presence of psychoticlike qualities. For most of the first two years of his treatment the boy was so disturbed that he required twenty-four-hour care. Most of his communications consisted of fantasies concerning space ships, faraway battles, faraway victories, atom bombs, etc. While in real life he was a timid, scared little boy, in his fantasy world he seemed to be a deadly faraway monster.
The authors state that at first they felt the boy would be so inaccessible that they decided to avoid his fantasy world and remain on the level of his reality problems. This was abandoned when they realized they made no contact with the child in this way; they then entered into his fantasy world,