Individual psychology and the child / Leonhard Seif [and others].

Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Individual psychology and the child / Leonhard Seif [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    She was very spoilt until she was old enough to help with the housework, then she got angry that the boys did nothing when they came home. Her father scolded her all the time, and hit her over the head; her mother was more friendly but said: “‘She is more trouble than ten boys.” Mary’s first remembrance was of her aunt saying: ‘‘The father likes the boys better than the girls.” She used to tell her father: “I will jump in the water,” and he replied: “‘Well, I shan’t pull you out.’ The brothers teased her and she quarrelled with them, calling them and her father the worst names; her father beat her every day and might have killed her. Some dreams were: “I got a lot of money but lost it - again,” and often she has dreamt that she was ona high mountain and fell down from it. Her favourite story was of a lost boy who was taken by robbers into a cave when he was three years old, and ran away from them when he was nine; he met a shepherd and showed him a picture which the shepherd recognised as that of a count; the boy was the count’s lost son and the shepherd took him back. | The father could not be got to change; he said to Dr. Seif: “Tf she will stop being violent, I will stop; she must first be good, then I will be friendly.’? She was industrious, and much liked in the factory, and the clinic arranged for her to live in the apprentice’s hostel, where she got on excellently, and when she went home to see them all went well. After a year and a half the family got a larger house (previously they had had only two rooms), so Mary wanted to go home, and thought everything would go well. But at home her father would not let her go out in the evenings or Sundays with friends; he followed her and brought her back home. Then they quarrelled, he beat her, and she called him names. She is now eighteen and wants to leave home. Dr. Seif explains to her that if she doesn’t succeed in taking her father as he is, she will have difficulties everywhere, she is too un-self-reliant, too sensitive, still wanting to be the small spoilt child—the count’s son of the fairy tale. He tells her that she cannot compel her father to be friendly if she is unfriendly against him; she cannot alter others, she can only alter herself. Mary understands, and is going on trying. ! _ After the interview with the child, there is usually another with the parents. Then the psychiatrist explains the case, and there is discussion; if advisable, one of the members may offer to keep in touch with the child, or give special coaching, gym- nastics, etc. Perhaps it is one of the best testimonials to the sound educational work of the clinic that those of the audience who are as yet unprepared to help the child and family seem to realise it themselves; the fact is that during the whole winter no such