Enactment and play following medical trauma. An analytic case study

This paper on the four-year analysis of a five-year-old girl with a school phobia details the playroom enactments of medical trauma and its sequelae. Early in the analysis the patient expressed herself almost exclusively through play. Gradually she connected her conflicts, including those over her compulsive masturbation, to her hospital experiences. Only after the traumatic medical experiences were no longer the major issue did other important conflicts become available for analytic work. Physical activity remained prominent in the analysis and generated pressure for mutual enactment. This case again draws our attention to the complex overlap of play, enactments, and verbalization in child analysis.