An Adolescent Boy with Allergic Sensitivity and Anaphylaxis as an Infant, Crippling Parental Overprotection, and Unconfirmed Epilepsy

Abstract

The patient’s personal and social development was stifled by his parent’s overprotection following two nearly fatal falls as a toddler. An unending list of medical precautions followed, including the warning that he needed to avoid occupied rooms where disease could be spread through the air. His identity became that of a medical cripple. The situation was exacerbated by the alleged development of epilepsy at age 12. In association, he claimed that he was too anxious to manage in school and was placed in special classes. No diagnosis apart from his allergic susceptibility was confirmed. The case narrative underscores the importance of personal psychotherapy and psychotropic medication trials in undoing his identity as a cripple and replacing this with a view of himself as normal. The narrative details the ways the patient and his parents attempted to defeat this effort and the techniques through which his self-image was normalized.