ABSTRACT
Darren was 12 years old when, in counselling, his mother made the link between her negative feelings about him and her physically and emotionally abusive behaviour towards him. She had experienced her own mother as harshly punitive and, at Darren’s age, was frequently locked in a room with bars at the window and no light bulb in the room. Of her four children, who were all boys, Darren, the second eldest, was the only one she abused. He reminded her of his biological father who left her in mid-pregnancy. A few hours after she had given birth to Darren, she heard his father’s voice in the hospital ward. He was visiting his new partner and their baby daughter who, coincidentally, had been placed in a bed opposite to Darren’s mother. She described feelings of hatred for Darren emanating from that time.
