An infant who was born with a life-threatening skin disease: Various aspects of triadic psychotherapy

A longitudinal case study of a 3-year-old toddler, born with a congenital, severe, life-threatening skin disease, with comorbid diagnoses of failure to thrive and feeding disorder, is described and discussed. The referral, diagnostic, and therapeutic processes are described, and the main themes of the treatment sessions are presented in the associative order that they occurred. The understanding of the case is very much based on the "me-skin'' concept. We have tried, through this case, to show the ways that we work with multidisciplinary team countertransferential reactions to the young child and her parents, the role that the child psychiatrist may take, and the special difficulty in working with cases that raise fear of death in parents as well as in therapists. We raise existential questions about worth of life, infant's will to grow, and infant's drive to live forever a painful life.