Page - 212 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

212 Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits such primitive fears? I tried to give him credit for coming in spite of these great problems. Once again, I discussed these sessions with Betty Joseph in order to understand this patient, who was so difficult to reach (Joseph 1975). In difficult cases, it is very important to bear insecurity and doubt together and reflect on them together. There was also occasion to hope that he could further benefit from his analysis. As soon as he came back to analysis, he was able to actively participate in learning at school, to do his homework and achieve success. Mark also began to play with his two sisters. Once when the parents came home, they found Mark and his sis- ters playing a board game together for several hours. In school, he was no longer mocked as an outsider, but had two good friends. In the following year, he applied by himself successfully to a technical university and was accepted. He could even meet with a former friend from his old school, who earlier had turned against him. When the family moved to a bigger house, he got a room of his own. A form of hallucination I wish to describe why I made the assumption that Mark’s looking into the corner of the room was a sign of hallucination. His gaze had a remarkable intensity, as if something in this corner were drawing him to it, enabling him to enter a secret world. In the session, he was silent as always, but he showed me how he was drawn into his secret world. The therapy session stood for reality, which he was seeking to avoid. Mark arrived 15 minutes too late, with a suntanned face; he sat down with his arms crossed, the soles of his shoes almost touching each other (about three- quarter inch apart). A: (after a few minutes of silence, which I granted him in order to arrive emotion- ally) You’re here again! M: (looking very irritated, he raises his eyebrows and looks in the corner) A: By not coming four times, you are showing me how irritated you are. M: (seems to be more deeply drawn to the corner) A: When I speak of how irritated you are with me, you look in this corner: you think you see something there that is eating up your session. M: (becomes restless) A: You feel attacked by me and run away from me as if I were a dangerous person. M: (becomes calmer and sinks his gaze to the carpet at his feet) A: And you want to know whether I see your panic and then you become calmer. M: (relaxes; his eyelids close slowly; he opens them several times with effort) A: With your feet, you are expressing your wish to be very close to me, but you keep a little distance between the soles, between us, in order to remain a separate person. M: (pause, then he closes his eyes and falls asleep)