The Museum of No-Return: The Developing Of Self-In-Time In A Retreated Child

Abstract

Through a description of the case of Maria, who entered analysis at the age of 5 because she was severely detached from reality and suffered from a profound apathy, I describe steps in the construction of the perception of time that could help facilitated her emotional growth. The subjective experience of self-in-time—an outcome of an emotional relationship with an object who cares—is an important aspect in building our perception of psychic reality. In severely disturbed, inaccessible children who are deeply retreated into a world of timelessness, the experience of self-in-time is often absent or distorted creating considerable difficulties for the evolution of the psychoanalytical treatment.

Keywords:

• At-one-ment
• growth
• self-in-time
• reclamation
• retreat
• timelessness

Notes

1 Bion (1997) defines a psychic category inaccessible as “… a mental category which has never been psychically represented or conscious, mainly to intrauterine life and a conjenctured type of primitive form of projective identification” (Civitarese 2013, p. 221).

2 Tustin (1990) describes children who have the “. . . incapacity to use the imaginary play, and in their lack of the ability to identify with the feelings of others” (p. 104). For those children, being alone is often not “being alone in the presence of the object” (Winnicott 1971, p. 28) but really a retreat back into their timeless enclave with phantasies of never growing-up. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between a patient who is “playing the other people's games” while “. . . all the time engaged in fantasying” (Winnicott 1971, p. 27).

3 As Lombardi says, “. . . without limits there can exist neither being nor thought” (2013, p. 692).

4 For an extensive review of the concept of time, see for example Birksted-Breen (2003; 2009); Green (2000, 2008); Laplanche (2001); Perelberg (2007, 2008); Sabbadini (1979, 1989); Scarfone (2006, 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Migliozzi

Bio: Anna Migliozzi is Full Member of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and Supervisor in the Analysis of Children and Adolescents. She has a private practice in Milan, where she works with children and adults who suffer from severe psychotic and borderline disorders.