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The impact of a war experience on the inner world of a young child
Insights
This case study shows how containment and interpretation in child psychotherapy helped a young boy overcome severe developmental arrest caused by trauma and sibling rivalry. He learned to process his fear and recover his cognitive and imaginative abilities.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Trauma Studies
- Psychodynamic Therapy
Background:
- A young child experienced severe developmental arrest following wartime trauma and the birth of a sibling.
- The child exhibited catastrophic consequences, including terror and fear of death, communicated through projective identification.
Observation:
- The child displayed intense persecutory anxiety, reacting violently to interpretations.
- The therapist provided containment, managing projections and physical attacks while maintaining clear observation.
Findings:
- Containment gradually enabled the child to accept and understand interpretations, reducing overwhelming emotions.
- Introjection of being understood fostered the child's capacity for reflective thinking about feelings.
Implications:
- The child's recovery included regaining intelligence and imagination, with a disappearance of behavioral difficulties.
- This highlights the efficacy of psychodynamic approaches in treating early-onset trauma and developmental disorders.
Abstract:
The author uses material from the treatment of a young child whose development became seriously arrested from the time of a traumatic experience during a war. This experience, combined with the impact of the birth of a younger sibling while he was still a baby himself, had catastrophic consequences. He could only communicate his feelings of terror and fear of dying through the use of projective identification. The persecutory anxiety of this child was such that for a while he could not tolerate hearing the interpretations, and was prone to violent outbursts. The author describes how she had to bear the projections and manage the physical attacks while trying to maintain the capacity to observe and think clearly. This setting produced an experience of containment that gradually allowed this child to accept and understand interpretations which diminished the power of feelings that had overwhelmed him in the past. Through introjection of the experience of being understood during his sessions, he began to develop the capacity to think about his feelings. This allowed him to gradually recover, develop, and make use of his intelligence and imagination, and the behavioural difficulties that brought him to treatment disappeared.