Page - 225 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 225 Chrisse was very nervous entering. A: What did you think when I did not open the door for you right away? Chrisse: I thought you were killed!! (greatly agitated) My parents were advised to be careful what they say to me, since I’m so sensitive. I always withdrew when I was hurt. A: (addressing her wishful thinking) You would like me to solve everything by pushing a button. Chrisse: Wouldn’t be bad (laughs, pulling on her hair and casting a few strands to the floor). A: You would like to leave something of yours here with me, your hair, that way you’d be sure you can come back on Monday. Evidently, I opened a space where Chrisse could tell me about her situation at the hospital. I let her tell me about it. Every step in the direction of normality, such as participation in soccer games, other sports, drawing and singing, the hospital school, has a stabilizing influence. She has gained ten kilos by now – as if she wished to fill her inner emptiness with food, it seemed to me. In the sessions, she often drew pictures and brought her portfolio with her. She would draw eyes or Satan, who could change gender at will. When drawing the collapsing world, she thematized her feelings: rage, contempt and the fear of col- lapse. She bought a key chain with a skull and wings. She was disappointed and frustrated that the other anorexic girls were already allowed to go home. Chrisse felt persecuted by various compulsive thoughts – for instance, that she was pregnant although still a virgin. Usually she projected her fantasies and fears onto other girls in the psychiatric ward. Unsure of whether she had been raped, she was reassured only when she got her next period. Once, she brought a dream: I am in a shopping center. There was a glass container in three parts there. In the first, there were harmless, peaceful animals. In the second, crocodiles and in the third a dangerous wildcat, a leopard monster who ate the crocodile. Then I notice that the three parts actually weren’t separated by glass walls. I become afraid and run away. I get into an elevator that gets stuck. I wake up in a panic. In her dream, she would like to separate the good animals from the dangerous ones, but does not succeed in this. Her impulses overwhelm her and threaten to demolish everything, expressing her confusion. Do the leopard and croco- dile with its teeth represent her family? Are the crocodile’s dangerous teeth those of her mother’s with her humiliating, hurtful sentences? Chrisse’s indis- tinct speech is not only a side effect of the medications, but expresses that her thoughts are “broken” in her head and then emerge in this fragmented nature from her mouth.