Author(s)

Anna-Corinne Bissouma¹, Madjara A. P. N. Anoumatacky², Regine Assi Kaudjhis³

¹Research Fellow, National Institute of Public Health, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
²Research Associate, Neuro-Sciences Laboratory, Biosciences Department, Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
³Research Associate, National Institute of Public Health, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

In child psychiatry, the use of play, a habitual activity in children, is used as a means of communication and therapy. The psychodynamic reading of a sequence of games played by a three-year-old child with dolls, who had been treated for anorexia for a year at the Children’s Guidance Center of Abidjan, shed new light on the child’s problems. The clinical history of M (3 years old) revealed, in addition to the eating disorder, a disturbance in the attachment bond and parental imagos in distress. This doll game, set up as a copy of reality, enabled the therapist to redirect his treatment and work on the mother-child bond.

Psychodynamic Analysis, Doll Game, Disturbance of Mother, Daughter Relationship, Abidjan

Bissouma, A. , Anoumatacky, M. and Kaudjhis, R. (2024) When Dolls’ Play Reveals Relational Distortions. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine, 13, 432-439. doi: 10.4236/crcm.2024.1310052.