Psychic change in child analysis

The paper describes a period of analysis of a 5-year-old boy as an illustration of some ideas about psychic change. Psychic change is approached in terms of emotional growth, which is directly associated with the degree of flexibility of the defensive system and its capacity to absorb and re-integrate lost parts of the ego and to be open to new emotional experiences. It is described how, through interpretations, the child's internal objects and relationships changed. In particular, his representation of his bad-analyst, bad-father, bad-self changed from being a gorilla to the Incredible Hulk to the whale and finally to Superman crying. When the analysis was interrupted, the patient was showing clear indications that the basis had been laid for establishing a more stable internalized object capable of containing and transforming his anxieties and feelings of despair into more tolerable ones, which gave him a better chance of being fed by good experiences.