This paper describes the five-year psychotherapy of a boy suffering from a very early developmental disorder. The treatment involved bringing the child back to the point of crisis in maternal caring. This type of regression is vital in treating certain severe disturbances, but it can also be dangerous; hence the importance of an appropriate environmental space. The treatment milieu has to be both a “holding” environment and a “containing” one, for child and therapist alike. Residential treatment based on a continuity of transitional spaces provided such an environment for Michael and helped nurture his emotional growth.