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October 29, 1974. CLINICAL AND PROGNOSTIC CONSIDERATIONS IN THE ANALYSIS OF A FIVE-YEAR-OLD HYSTERIC. By Henry Rosner, M.D.
Dr. Rosner presented data from the analysis of a five-year-old girl which lasted six years and was terminated on the basis of metapsychological criteria rather than external events. After a three-year interval, when the patient was fourteen, there was a follow-up visit. Dr. Rosner used the clinical data to illustrate the problems of evaluating the efficacy of analytic interventions in the resolution of basic conflicts. In the follow-up visit, the patient retained her analytic stance and, at the end of the session, presented an enigmatic drawing which apparently expressed her view of what the analysis had meant to her. For Dr. Rosner, this raised metapsychological questions about the structure of the case and its prognosis.
The patient was brought for treatment at age five when severe functional and structural regression occurred following her seduction of her two-and-one-half-year-old brother when she gained control, literally and figuratively, of his penis. The analysis elucidated the reasons for her heightened castration anxiety which