Maria is 22 months old; she comes with her mother called Sofia.
He comes in without looking at me and goes straight toys.
Mutual recognition facilitation group
Get some on the table between her mother and me.
Take color labelers, paper, and make some bottles.
Look at everything, without interest.
He says a few monosyllables I don't understand.
Go back to pick up and leave the bears of hair and the cottage that is near.
Nothing seems like giving it pleasure.
The mother says that at home it is like this, she never stops playing.
Mary's commentary takes angry and hostile attitude.
Take your wrists to the ground.
The mother tells her to take them, she doesn't do it, she goes to the door and indicates she wants to go out.
She will come in and go out several times from the consultation, never going to the mother.
The child is underweight for her age, below the 10th percentile.
Eat very little, and also sleep little.
The mother says the relationship with her child is very difficult, that she is obstinate like the father.
Sofia was a very young mother at age 17.
Maria's father left her when she was still pregnant.
She lived with her paternal grandmother and her father, with whom she always lived.
The mother left her when she was 3 years old and never visited her.
She reappeared a short time ago wishing to relate to her, but for her it is difficult, she feels angry.
Later, she'll say her grandmother says she was like Maria.
He is always uneasy and willing to make a fire.
In the next session she tells me that during the week she remembered her mother a lot.
She always felt angry with her mother.
Sometimes I thought her daughter's problems could have to do with what happened between her and her mother.
She always felt distant from her daughter.
She feels she's not like a mother for her daughter.
Maria, who is on the floor trying to get a bear of hair in the house, raises herself, takes her bear to the mother and leaves the consultation.
In the next session, the mother comes with Maria in her hand.
He says it was like this all week long.
Maria doesn't let her go.
She has great berrinches, for everything and for nothing, she says to the mother "I don't want you" to then go and embrace her.
Her mother told her to know about the niece, she liked to tell her that it wasn't her business, but she told her that Maria was better.
They went to visit Sofía's grandmother, who found Maria different, more happy.
Sofia felt the grandmother loved her a lot and she remembered how I always bear her anger.
This approximation of the daughter does not unpleasant to her, she thinks she did not get closer before because she was angry with her: "at best we did the same thing" and smiles.
During the following 4 sessions, great changes occurred in Maria.
Feeding and sleep became normal.
Language was developed.
Play your mother often.
The mother says she's discovering Maria.
Some observations: Maria's relevant symptomatology: feeding and sleep are altered; as well as the symbolization process: she did not play and almost did not speak.
In this joint mother-child therapy, it can be observed how the mother "see" and "interpret" her daughter and how this is organized according to the meaning that the mother gives to her acts.
In the game of identifications, he first finds him similar to the father, who was obstinate, who only did what he wanted and left her pregnant.
Father's bad things are now on his daughter.
But then she talks about herself, the grandmother tells her she was as anxious and disobedient as her daughter.
Seeing her daughter, Sofia goes from a projective position "she does not obey me, she provokes me" to a more introjective position, in which she was asked "all the way I was also".
When Maria does not eat, "he seems to hate the food" and does not sleep, she notes her maternal incapacity to take care of her daughter and shows that she does not feel a good mother.
This whole process of associating memories and emotions with situations and attitudes experienced at this time requires effort and causes psychological suffering.
The catalyst is the child who, when "viewed" in a different way, is released and changes their interactive behavior.
The baby's quick changes help the mother continue.
Sofia addresses her separation from her daughter, "I felt very close to her, I never felt a mother for my daughter."
Repair of separation marked by Sofia's relationship with her mother.
Held when she identified herself with her distant mother, she helped without realizing this rejection with her daughter.
When evoking the grandmother, she realized how much care she had given, which had a restorative function in her image of abandoned child.
The mother's return gave birth to a hope of well-being, perhaps a harmony between grandmother, daughter and niece.
1.
Some conclusions
And Maria, now out of the projective system, mother can start to exist as a subject.
In early childhood most symptoms result from inter-relational disturbances, determined by the dynamics of the parental psychic functioning on the child and its placement interactively.
The mother-child therapies provoke important modifications in the representations of the mother, in the symptoms and in the interconnected modes.
The role of the therapist is to give meaning to what is said by the mother, what is observed in the interaction and enunciate it, which will allow change.
The speed of the transformations is due to psychic mobility in the postpartum period and in the early life of the child.
The arrival of a child is one of the most important moments in life, which contain an enormous maturational and regenerative potential.
This should be used by our health systems.
Obstetrics and Pediatrics services should work together with Mental Health services.
The periods of pregnancy and early life of the child are already widely medicalized, so it is imperative to add the psychological aspect.
Early therapeutic interventions are an effective way to prevent future mental disorders (5).
