A client named Mai, born by far the youngest of her siblings, had to grow faster than
her own terms. Fear of rejection had discouraged her from expressing herself and
disabled her from managing her own emotional surges. Mai started her play therapy
at seven. She was so stringent that she even proposed to grade her drawings. As
the therapist (henceforce TH) proposed a more lenient alternative, Mai relaxed and
digressed into producing stories featuring characters from her drawings. But her
subsequent drawings of mass game with esoteric rules made little sense, indicating
that Mai still kept to herself, desparately struggling to cheer herself up within the
confine of her self-imposed rules. TH intervened by sympathetically describing her
predicament. Mai responded by producing a drawing-story featuring a dog capable
of showing her weakness in a safe environment. Mai started sharing journal and
secrets with TH, presumably a token of her wish to play with TH. Her previously
commanding mannerism also changed. She gradually grew able to complain without
supressing herself.
