ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents a case history of child Ashton at age of 12. This case provides an example of a therapeutic consultation which carried itself forward by its own momentum, and the boy and the author reached surprising places. There was a significant result to this consultation in that the boy, who had become more and more blocked in his emotional development and was developing into a schizoid personality, was able to go forward in his development. Both at home and at school he could be helped. Attention is drawn to the unique opportunity which a first interview affords in psychiatry. The immediate effect of the first consultation was that Ashton stopped having a raised temperature and feeling unwell whenever the return to school came near. He went back to school and quite quickly found a new place in the local community.
