Citation

Lanyado M. Br. J. Psychother. 1985; 2(1): 50-62.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1752-0118.1985.tb00925.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The therapeutic process that was significant for the recovery of two traumatised children is described. Exploration of the meaning of the trauma for the children led me to believe that they had experienced it as their internal and external parents failing to protect them from disaster. In addition to this, they felt that their parents had further failed them by being unable to contain their children's distress after the event. The therapy developed in such a way that I found that I had to be in a state of mind which was like that of the devoted mother's reverie for her infant. This helped the children to feel totally contained again and, having re-introjected this experience, they slowly started to recover and face the demands of growing up. Attention is drawn to the similarities of this therapeutic process to normal family development. Both children had extreme difficulty in talking about their traumatic experience, and could only communicate it to me by projection in the transference relationship. In view of their immaturity, verbalisation may not be as important or helpful for these children as containment of the non-verbal communication.