A six-year-old boy thought to be mentally retarded was brought for consultation at the suggestion of the mother's analyst, who suspected the diagnosis to be wrong. In the course of twenty-seven drawings during a single interview, the boy developed, with the help of the author, the situation of a mother going to sleep while holding her baby. The mother confirmed that when the boy was fourteen to sixteen months old she experienced a severe depression characterized by going to sleep while engaged in various tasks. Following the consultation, learning at school seemed to be released and the boy made steady growth at home. The diagnosis was changed to infantile schizophrenia with a tendency to spontaneous recovery. The study is a specific example of the effect on a child of the failure of what Hartmann has called 'the average expectable environment'.