ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emotional impact of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy on a 6-year-old child who at a younger age had been poisoned by her mother. It describes the child's treatment in child psychotherapy over twenty months at the Cassel Hospital, where the family worked towards her successful rehabilitation home. The chapter describes three phases of treatment: fear of separation and preoccupation with the trauma of poisoning, ambivalence about facing the destructiveness in the family, and the move into more appropriate latency behaviour as she prepared to go home with her parents. It deals with an overview of the impact of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy on the developing child, as shown in this treatment. A brief description of the work of the Cassel Hospital may be useful, as this provided the containing structure that made possible the individual work with the child.
