Citation

Beech SG. J. Child Psychother. 2000; 26(2): 259.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00754170050082830

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore some of the effects of abuse by a mother on her very young son. It considers how the primitive capacity for coping with anxiety by splitting and projection has been rendered ineffectual, and how the structures that have evolved to compensate have profoundly affected the boy's emotional and mental capacities. In the first fifteen months of therapy, the boy has begun to make some tentative moves towards effective splitting and projection, with its hope of healthier growth. This hope is hard for him to bear, involving, as it must, searing depressive pain. There is consequently a powerful pull towards a pathological organization where omnipotence and omniscience offer, disastrously, an exciting and pain-free alternative. The boy's therapy and his therapist are exposed to the full impact of the omnipotent onslaught, and evolving ways of bearing this and continuing to think was not only essential for survival but, also, a major tool of the therapy.

Keywords: Early; Abuse; Mother/SON; Abuse; Pathological; Organization; Pathological; Splitting; Omnipotence; Omniscience