The paper discusses how social exclusion imposes a parasitic container-contained relationship and, consequently, a catastrophic experience on the subjects. Children who come from backgrounds of social exclusion and who were designated by their teachers as having difficulties learning and as making the teachers feel less than competent were observed at a school in Brazil. The children met with the researcher (the author) once a week, during which time they could play, read, draw, or just talk. Material is presented to show that catastrophe obstructs growth through the use of mechanisms that make contact between container and contained (or vice-versa) unviable. The path from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position is thus blocked, and, as a result, there tends to be difficulty in developing the capacity for symbol formation and then to learn how to read and write and to ‘think thoughts’.