Lately I have been pondering the powerlessness of children. To me it seems such an easy thing to give them more of the power they often crave and seek in such cyclonic ways in the family. As the child's therapist, we can bestow so much power on a child by merely understanding and validating his or experience.

But try and explain these simple tools to a parent who is gripped and driven by unconscious needs to have the child live out something so important and necessary for the parent. How we, as the therapist grind our teeth ineffectually as we try to get the parent to understand things from the perspective of the child. What a futile endeavor this frequently turns out to be! Not until the parent is freed from her stranglehold is the child freed up and allowed to be herself.

I'm thinking particularly about a little nine-year old girl who has been powerless to establish her difference from a mother who is so conscientious, so elegant, so refined in manners, such a hard-working, constantly traveling executive, yet tired and lacking in playfulness. Her daughter, who is a tiger, neither refined nor elegant, quite earthy, craving physical activity, laughs uproariously and says, "Mom would be so embarrassed if she heard what we are saying."

Mom wants me to insist that the dreary regime of schoolwork all day and all evening be strictly upheld. I feel a sense of futility as I try to explain to Mom how all work and no play makes Karina a "very annoyed girl," according to Karina. My heart goes out to them both and we begin now the arduous journey of trying to get something to shift in favor of greater joie de vivre. I know what lies ahead of this mother - her whole dreary life with her own mother, the father who was stern and selfish, and who knows what other ancestral skeletons will be heard to rattle!

Jacqueline Hanley
Faculty & Supervisor, Toronto Child Psychoanalytic Program