Brain and Mind by Andreas Steck & Barbara Steck

Author:Andreas Steck & Barbara Steck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Clinical Vignette Roberto

The parents ask for a child psychiatric consultation for their 6-year-old son, who suffers from school phobia, intense anxieties, and fears and does not want to grow up. In the first individual interview with the child psychiatrist, Roberto tells of his recurrent nightmare of a white ghost. Later, his mother informs the psychotherapist that—on the anniversary of the death of her father, which occurred 4 years ago—Roberto drew a skeleton in a coffin. Her son had never known his grandfather. When the mother asked who was lying in the coffin, Roberto answered: “My grandfather” and wanted to know the cause of his grandfather’s death.

The boy’s symptomatology disappeared as soon as the mother was able to engage in a psychotherapeutic process, which lasted 6 years. The psychotherapy revealed that her father, who suffered from bipolar psychosis, was no longer able to keep up his farm and piled up depts. He finally committed suicide. The maternal grandmother of Roberto was affected by syphilis. It is in this particularly dramatic context that Roberto’s mother—already as a child and then as teenager—endured long-lasting sexual abuse, first by her paternal grandfather then by the paternal uncle, who had taken over the farm and ensured the financial existence of her family.

Roberto’s mother had never been able to talk about her cumulative trauma tic childhood and adolescence experiences. She kept her overwhelming emotions of shame, guilt, fear, and despair secret; a mourning process for the loss of her father and her traumatic experiences never took place.

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