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The limited period in Randy's analysis which was described above serves to illustrate some of the reconstructive work with him. It does not differ essentially from other analyses. When I viewed it over a period of years, however, and saw it within the wider context of his whole treatment, my attention was drawn to some features which I had not noted so clearly in other patients. These aspects underlined for me some of the problems inherent in reconstructive work with children.
One special set of circumstances centered on the role of the parents, both as informants and as love objects on whom the child depends in the present. Although Randy was only 4½ years old when I began to see his parents, their recollections of his personal history omitted many of those events which to him were the most important. Insofar as the parents did relate the past, their view of it differed drastically from that of the patient's, as we came to understand it in the analysis. It is rare for parents of a very young child to be so utterly lacking in empathy with their child's inner and outer life experiences. This attitude did not change throughout the course of the treatment, although consciously and conscientiously both parents did their utmost to support the analytic