The lost boy who feared growing up

In this paper, I will present the case of Tyrone, a 9-year-old boy who attended therapy once a week, within a Southeast London school, for the period of 20 weeks. My time as Tyrone’s therapist (in training) offers an insight into the development of a therapeutic relationship wherein the child may be experiencing feelings of persecution and a sense of maternal deprivation. I will elaborate on how this was experienced in the countertransference and how treatment progressed. I enjoyed developing a therapeutic relationship with Tyrone, despite the sense of sadness I felt during many of our interactions. In his referral, much was made of his consistent use of infantile speech, his premature birth and rivalry with a younger brother who bore the family nickname of “baby”. My initial sense of Tyrone was a of a boy reluctant to grow up. This paper will reflect on this using the metaphor of Peter Pan; a child who did not grow up and yet, despite his bravado, appeared to have unmet infantile needs and anger towards a mother figure (Barrie, 1911). Tyrone is the second youngest of a large family of mixed-race heritage (White-British and the Caribbean). He has two older brothers, one in prison and one under probation. He also has a 15-year-old sister who, when we met, had just given birth to her own baby. These siblings came and went from the