ABSTRACT
This chapter describes in detail the course of psychotherapy, over a period of years, with a little boy of six who did not speak outside the home. It shows the vivid phantasy play of this child and the events leading up to his first words in the treatment sessions. The psychoanalytic understanding of the dynamic, economic and genetic origins of the factors followed the unfolding of the clinical material in sessions with the child and his parents. The therapeutic technique used was based on the understanding of the material the child brought in phantasy, play and, later, speech. Psychotherapy had enabled the child to become aware of some of the underlying motivations for his unhappy, disturbed behaviour – his powerful, aggressive impulses, linked with his fears for his own safety in a world made hostile by his feelings and reinforced by the reality of his unprotective parents.
