Seite - 241 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 241 we do here in analysis and I know that a lot has changed in my life. But I’m coming four times a week! Couldn’t I aim for a faster result? I want to find out more about my feelings. A: You have mixed feelings about paying and also about continuing analysis. P: Yesterday I thought some more about Justin, it’s so difficult for me not to annoy him with reproachful questions. Yesterday he was on an excursion and when he came home I asked him where they had been. He said he didn’t know. I pressed him and said you must know where you were. I can’t hold myself back. He didn’t say anything more then. I talked on and after a while he said: “Mother, you’re getting on my nerves!” I don’t know his exact words anymore. I asked him then: “How?” He answered: “In every way” – and shut himself in his room. A: It is so painful when he is older (15) and doesn’t want to be so close to you anymore. P: (becomes very sad) Justin was the only child who liked to cuddle with me so, more than the two others. And now he doesn’t want to touch me anymore, when I stroke his hair, he turns away. That hurts so much! A: The two others live by themselves, he is the only child still at home. P: Now that I have more time, I would like to spend more time with him. I feel guilty too, since I neglected him so when I took Vinzenz from doctor to doc- tor . . . A: You are longing so for closeness and physical contact. Here, you are some- times touched by my words, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. You want to feel it quite concretely. P: I said to my husband: “Please, hold me tight, touch me! I need that!” Now, he can do it. A: Now that the session is over, it’s hard for you to go. P: Yes. But I’m coming back tomorrow. In this phase, where her second son is becoming more independent, she feels flooded by her own infantile neediness, which she previously projected onto her other sons – although in reality, she needs Justin much more than he needs her. Now, she has gradually come to feel her neediness, instead of hiding it behind her nagging and her conviction that she was missing out on something. Her hus- band was then able to respond to her neediness. In analysis, she wanted to be a good patient and make exemplary progress. In transference, I was like Justin who did not need her, spending my weekend and vacation with my family, not with her. Although she felt the desire to stroke Justin’s hair, she actually wished to be stroked and cared for like a baby; she wanted to sit on my lap, since her rejecting mother could never satisfy these wishes. After long discussion, she now had the confidence to fulfill her wishes to travel. Since her husband received no vacation this year, she traveled with a friend and was able to enjoy their trip. Gradually, feelings such as the longing for closeness and security emerged in her alongside the familiar, dark feelings of accusation, bitterness, reproach and desperation. Could life also be friendly and pleasant in addition to all her painful