ABSTRACT
Alady referred her sixteen-year-old stepson for a consultation. She had brought him up from the age of seven, when she married his father, after his mother had left the family three years earlier. He was now presenting problems at school and he had become obsessed with visiting a couple who ran a youth group. In the course of our interview, he drew a picture of the wife of this couple sitting sideways on a chair and went on to draw several other images. As our conversation progressed, he turned the page over and drew an altar. I thought it puzzling that he had drawn this image with lighter lines, not so clearly defined as those on the first page. I picked up the paper and, as I was indicating my interest in his choice of subject, I noticed that the lady was now lying over the altar (see Alan, pp. 74-78). When I showed him this superimposition, he was surprised and somewhat embarrassed; he could recognise how, from an unconscious point of view, this lady had come to fill the gap left by his mother, who had abandoned the family when he was four years old.
