Page - 57 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Psychosexual development in puberty 57 Her impulses and curiosity were at first totally inhibited. She kept asking which game she should play; she not only gave the impression she was unwanted and compelled to do whatever she must merely in order to be tolerated, but she also was obviously attempting to guess in advance what I expected from her. At home, she was a support for her mother, and they did everything together. Like a clown, Elfi was able to cheer her depressed mother up by telling funny stories and per- forming gymnastics. Concealed behind this, however, was Elfi’s desperation and loneliness. She was a friendly, patient, pretty little doll, who allowed her mother to take care of her. She had no real wish to go to school, but would have preferred to remain a child in kindergarten. Nobody realized just how desperate she was. During my periodic meetings with the parents, the mother’s situation gradually became clearer. She was surprised, rather than pleased, by her third pregnancy (with Elfi). Because of her deep religious beliefs, she would not even consider the idea of an abortion, and yet on the unconscious level she rejected this unwanted child. She was a depressive personality, unhappy in her marriage and yet unwill- ing to change it, instead propping up the façade of a “good” family, and was barely aware of her own ambivalent feelings towards Elfi. For her part, Elfi felt responsible for her parents’ bad relationship: she was profoundly convinced that her parents could get along better without her existence. Elfi’s mother sees her as a cheerful, carefree child who can make her laugh. Presumably, she has never had access to her daughter’s depressed, desperate feelings, so that Elfi feels rejected and misunderstood by her own mother. Elfi shares with her mother a rejection of all men: at the beginning of analysis, she didn’t want to do anything together with her father. The father (who also was in psychoanalysis, unbeknownst to his wife) was attempting to reflect on Elfi in his analysis. At the beginning, Elfi scorned all sexual thoughts and impulses. When I used words to describe her body in my interpretations, she would not listen. She con- sidered terms such as “baby”, legs and my descriptions of physical contact to be dirty. She was afraid of her own vitality. The only living being she felt close to was her beloved dog Baxi, whom she often drew pictures of and cuddled with in order to feel less lonely. Only Baxi was allowed to be vital. Nobody was meant to hear how hard her life was. She was afraid of life, of her feelings and of her sexuality. She rejected her own body, demonstrating this by casting herself as the grunting, disgusting pig when she played. Slowly, Elfi began to trust me and revealed her situation to me through play. In role playing, I was cast as the stupid, incompetent pupil. As the little pink wooden figure, she was able to fly through the air, execute acrobatic feats and tell me what a failure my little blue figure was. I was meant to cry since I was so unhappy, whereupon she consoled me generously. Alternatively, she wanted to seduce and imprison my blue figure. I was meant to feel the fear and helplessness that she felt when she was excluded and laughed at, when nobody came to her with help. When we played, she was the strong one, with everyone listening to her words. She either accepted my interpretations of her behavior or corrected them, e.g., when she told me I should cry more and show more fear.