Page - 161 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 161 The lowest point in his life story is also the cause of his being put in a home. In the interview, he relates: R: My stepfather hit me and I had a head wound. My mother didn’t want to call the ambulance, so she only put a bandage on the wound. Next day at school, the teacher asked me about it. I said I fell down. Then, I had to go to the prin- cipal. I told him the truth and then the school reported my stepfather. Then I went into the home. I: You had to go away from your parents? R: Only because I agreed. They asked me if I wanted to stay with my parents or go to a children’s home. I said no, I don’t want to go home. I: Did you do better there? R: Yes. I: Better at the home than at your family’s home? R: Not at the home itself, but I felt better anyway. I always said to myself, my stepfather can’t do anything to me anymore. I thought everything was simpler. I: Is your stepfather still alive? R: No, he died two years ago, unfortunately. I: Why do you say “unfortunately”? R: Because towards the end, I got along with him very well. It’s all so long ago. When I went to the home because of him, I was twelve and now I’m eighteen. (Staudner -Moser 1997, 93) His being put into the home marks a low point on the lifeline he drew, equaled only by his time in prison. It is not known how R. did at the home. Might this low point in his lifeline also be an indication of suicidal thoughts? Unfortunately, we have no data or explanations for the two smaller low points preceding this – or the subsequent upward progression. The upward -directed line could coincide with the end of R.’s schooling. The “abuse” mentioned in his file could be traced to regular violence by his stepfather. Through his mother’s “generous” financial support – which might indicate her bad conscience at not having shielded him from her husband’s violence – he need not suffer consequences from being unemployed. Instead of beginning vocational training, R. tries to get money through robbery; unfortunately, data regarding these crimes are imprecise. Alarmingly, R.’s lifeline ends at its absolute lowest point, without any upward turn – a sign of his hopelessness: instead, he extends the horizontal zero line graphed on the paper, making it rise and writing “happiness” on top. Perhaps he feels he has no real influence on his lifeline and instead longs for a deus ex machina, some outside force. Possibly in this case we should understand “happi- ness” as in fact the opposite – a form of bad luck. Only during the last two years has R. developed a better relationship with his stepfather. He had no positive male role model in his family to emulate. Now under the influence of the two empathetic anti -aggression trainers, R. very slowly develops new, non -aggressive modes of behavior for difficult life situations.