Light and movement: making contact with a traumatised and embattled latency girl

Abstract

This paper shows a child psychotherapist learning and developing her technique as she attempts to make contact with a child who is extremely hard to reach. It is based on the first two years of three-times-weekly intensive psychotherapy of a latency girl who had little faith in a helpful therapeutic relationship. Her defences against such a relationship were entrenched and hard to shift. In this clinical work, the psychotherapist relies on close observation and her countertransference to develop a relationship with the child, in order to begin to make sense of her non-verbal emotional experience and communication.

Keywords:

• intensive psychotherapy
• countertransference
• trauma
• second skin formation
• projective identification
• technique

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Anne Alvarez for her invaluable supervision and lively discussion throughout this case.