Page - 157 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 157 only stick figures. The scene illustrates the situation after a soccer game in the Prater Stadium, which he describes as follows: There was a big fight and I was in the middle of it, which I wanted, of course, and I got quite a bit of punishment, and went down. That’s just how it was. The next day, someone else got the brunt of it, or in the next fight I was faster. I’m not upset about it. It comes with the territory. Usually it’s me anyway who gets back up, not the other guy. Don’t worry! (Staudner -Moser 1997, 89) B. has difficulty drawing this scene and even more difficulty feeling the attendant emotions. His drawing clearly expresses the threatening situation of lying on the floor. The victor’s triumph is underlined by the foot he places on B.’s back – in the pose of a game hunter placing his foot on the prize (perhaps a lion). B. finds it neces- sary to immediately inform the group that he usually wins the fight. When other par- ticipants ask him whether he can remember the various blows meted out within his family, he shakes his head and contends that he was never beaten. On the contrary, he has beaten up his mother’s partner (as described in the police report). Presumably, he does not wish to remember the time when he was weaker than his mother’s partner. From this moment on, the group exercises start to appeal to B. – for instance, one observational game with two participants sitting opposite one another; one of them must observe and remember the posture and facial expression of the other. This “observer” then turns around while the other alters something about his position or expression. Next, the “observer” must look back, detect this change and describe it. After this, the two participants switch roles. B. enthusiastically engages in this exercise and wants to do it with other partners as well. His apathy and disinterest are gone – he seems curious and involved after he has felt under- stood by the group and trainer. After 12 sessions, B. is abruptly released from prison. As we learn from letters he wrote to his social worker, he does not manage to make a constructive life for himself, drifting into the drug scene and participating in numerous fights and violent crimes. The social worker who conducted this study remains a significant link. Many years after his release, he writes her moving letters: When did I see you last? I think it was the time with the taxi, where I wasn’t doing too well. I don’t know how far you’re informed as to what I’ve been doing the last few years. I don’t exactly know myself, since I was a drug addict, as you know. When I wasn’t chasing the next fix, I was either in the hospital or in jail. The last 1 ½ years brought only bad luck for me, it began with a fight where I had 5 ribs broken and two of them stuck in my lungs. Only after 8 hours did my two friends find me, and they called the ambulance. I landed in intensive care and now I have a 30 cm long scar on the side of my back . . . and 4 steel