ABSTRACT
Tom was the second child of a single parent, a mother who had suffered severe deprivation in her own childhood. During his first years of life there were frequent admissions to hospital, twice at the mother’s request, when she became afraid of harming him, and he entered into care when he was 5 years old, while the other children remained with their mother. For Tom, the meaning of his regained toys and their confirmation of his growing capacity to express himself in more symbolic ways went together with an increased capacity to hold on to more inside himself, both physically and in his thinking. Keith was abandoned at birth by a mother who herself had been abandoned. Keith seemed to feel that he was the baby his mother threw away like some dirty piece of old rubbish – hence his lowly position on the first floor and his inferior toys.
