Page - 238 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

238 Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits me so furious. I helped her back in school when she was new there, and now it’s reversed, she does everything better. Analyst: You experience your friend as finding herself superior to you. She does things right and you do things wrong. Perhaps you think that I am also like your friend. You are wondering whether I have children who are doing well. Patient: Here we go again. I’m not thinking about that at all. And if I were to ask you, you wouldn’t answer. I already thought whether I displace my feelings to Justin. For me, it would be the worst thing, to get left back in school. But maybe it’s not so bad for him. But in the night when I think about Justin, it’s so awful. I am so afraid that everything will be like it was with Vinzenz. A: You can’t even say openly what this could mean, what happened with Vinzenz. Patient: That he could be put in a psychiatric ward. The situation then where they sent me away and he had to stay there alone. A: And behind this separation there is an earlier one, when they separated you from Vinzenz. Patient: Yes, when he was a baby and was put in the hospital since he was breath- ing with such difficulty. A: You haven’t told me yet how that happened, how you noticed his breathing problems. Patient: I went to a birthday party with both children. My husband couldn’t come with us. It was very strenuous and a big challenge. I shouldn’t have gone to it just four weeks after giving birth. When we were going home, I noticed that Vinzenz was breathing so badly that he was retracting his throat (she demon- strates). I went straight to the hospital. A: And today, in the last session before our long separation, the point is not your separation from Vinzenz, and you bring your hairband to show me how much you’d like to stay here. Patient: We’ve already talked about that, how I’d like to stay. And then I think of some thoughts I had as a child. (pause) A: You are remembering thoughts, but you can’t say them. Patient: (begins to weep) Yes. I have them in my head, but something’s missing. I feel myself only up to there (she points to her chest) and the head – and in between something is missing. A: Something was interrupted and is missing. You are pointing to the same place you pointed to when you said that Vinzenz retracted his throat, like a great burden. Presumably Vinzenz was not only bearing his own burden but also yours and showing the burden with his body. Patient: (sobbing) And – I – can’t – say – it! A: (after several minutes) Maybe you also want to see if I really want to know it or am just like your mother, who thinks it is completely normal to go back to work after four weeks and wean the child, and there is no difference between a mother and a grandmother. Patient: I – say – that – she – should – not – go – away!