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Weaning is accompanied by the emergence of particularly painful feelings in the baby, which bring out infantile elements in the surrounding adults that in turn disturb the baby. This is shown in the account of a visit of a friend of the family. The experience of the loss of the breast induces feelings of rage in the baby that result in aggressive behaviour. The intensity of feeling is such that to spare his mother he attacks instead an inflatable toy cow. To relieve his violent feelings Simone seeks an alliance with an older child. Of particular interest is the twelfth session, in which Simone shows how, through evolving representations of the breast, he internalizes the object.
RN (reads): Simone is on the patio in his pushchair with his mother, looking at the small children playing in the garden. He looks at me
Page 35intently, putting his hand in his mouth and stretching out his arms. He rubs his fingers and looks intently at a male friend I met in the garden and who is speaking to me. He takes hold of a little bell, brings it to his mouth, kicks his legs.
Inside the house, Simone is put in the kitchen in his pushchair, putting his hands to his mouth and smiling happily at the family friend who came in with me and who plays “peek-a-boo” with him, saying to me, “You know his parents don't give him enough to eat because the paediatrician says he likes thin babies!” Simone gurgles and looks smiling at me, then concentrates on making tinkling noises with his bell.
With his dummy in his mouth, he looks at the friend, while his mother, at the sink, talks to him. Simone, on his back in the pushchair, looks up towards his face: “I'll buy you a lovely cow who will make plenty of milk for you—gniaf gniaf!” Simone sucks the dummy, looks at me where I sit in front of the friend, then at his mother. The friend picks him up and bounces him on