Letters from Lockdown

Dear All,

I would like to share with you my short experience doing video sessions with children from ages four to fifteen during this troubled period. I still work in my office, which is in a part of my home, so they can see me and the office on the video. Most of the children have chosen to continue the therapy. I tell the parents to let their child stay in a quiet room alone with the phone on video call. The children can then move with the phone…and the troubles begin! I can see their private universe; they show me their room, their bed, their toys, the pictures on the wall. They make me visit the entire apartment, their brothers' and sisters' rooms, even the parents' room—a direct primitive scene! The camera is always moving, so it is sometimes difficult for me to follow, but this is interesting because I can see the world as they want to show it to me, with their eyes. I see the world from their one-meter height and it changes my outlook. Suddenly everything seems very big to me: the furniture, the parents. I can better remember what it's like to be small, surrounded by things that seem giant, and maybe I can better reconnect with my infant parts and identify with them. Some of my patients draw on paper and show me their drawings. With one five-year-old child, we made up a fight with puppet and figurines, but this time it was my toys against his toys; a lot of aggressiveness emerged with this usually inhibited boy. With another child, I played mime games and dice games; with another, the hand game rock, paper, scissors; with another, we prepared a meal with a play “dinette” set by asking “What do you have at home?” and “What do I have in my office?” And then we shared a common meal. With another child, we played a hide-and-seek game, but it was difficult for me to find the child outside the screen. One child was in his kitchen and started to show me all the things he was forbidden to touch, touching the oven or bringing food out of the frid