Spiderman; the developmental possibilities of a superhero for a young adopted boy

Abstract

This paper explores a three and later four-year-old adopted boy’s identification with the character of Spiderman in his first year of intensive psychotherapy. The paper draws parallels between observational material from the boy’s psychotherapy sessions and the Spiderman television cartoon series. The author suggests that Spiderman and the fictional world of superheroes resonate with the internal preoccupations of the young boy. The boy’s omnipotent identification with Spiderman functioned as a flight from his early traumatic experiences of abuse and a flight towards development. Playing Spiderman allowed the patient to express his potency, and receive narcissistic gratification, both crucial elements of the phallic-narcissistic phase. During the course of the treatment, the patient allowed himself to acknowledge the more vulnerable aspects of Spiderman and within himself. In this way the author suggests that the character of Spiderman provided rich developmental possibilities for his patient.

Keywords:

• Superhero-Spiderman
• trauma
• abuse
• adoption
• young boy
• omnipotence
• imagination

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Juliet Hopkins and Dr Linda Pae for their guidance and support. He would also like to thank Jack’s adoptive parents for their commitment to the psychotherapy. The author is pursuing doctoral research on the theme of superheroes, and would be interested to hear about other encounters with young superheroes inside or outside of the psychotherapy consulting room.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ben Yeo is a Child Psychotherapist in Specialist Training in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service of the UK NHS. He is training at the Independent Psychoanalytic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Association (IPCAPA), The British Psychotherapy Foundation.