ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the boy's problems followed from the conflicting injunctions he was receiving from his parents. The image of the child as victim or of a parent as intrusive, self-centred, and deaf to the child's needs can occur much too often when seeing a family, but if child want to understand the family dynamics and elicit the nature of the roles that each one plays to keep it in place. The interviews present fascinating examples of how a child will convey the content of his unconscious conflicts and how the mother's understanding of her son's anxieties signified that he could now overcome his problem. Daniel was 13 months old when, out of desperation, his parents agreed to see a child psychiatrist. Jane's story is a rich illustration of the ways in which a child uses physical complaints to convey distress to the parents.
