Donald Woods Winnicott is known not only as a psychotherapist and scientist, but also for the projective method of drawing “doodles” that he invented. He used it with great success in the diagnosis and psychotherapy of children and adults in a wide variety of situations and cases. Here is one of them: This material has not yet been presented in Russian. This is my translation from English. “Ruth” - 8 years Ruth’s case appeared as follows: a man came to me for consultation about himself; it was Ruth's father. During the hour when he talked about himself, many facts accumulated. Of these, two things are important in describing Ruth's problems. First: his daughter, the middle of three, began stealing at school, and with this her personality changed, becoming secretive and withdrawn. Her studies deteriorated significantly, and the school asked to expel her. Second, this man, who was trying to keep his family together while working, could not cope with his wife's illnesses. Ruth's mother loved having children, especially during their infancy and early dependency. She coped well with her eldest daughter and enjoyed Ruth until she became pregnant with her third child, who also turned out to be a girl. This became a cause for concern, and Ruth's mother knew that pregnancy would entail many responsibilities that she would have to cope with. She may have briefly lost confidence in her husband. The heavy workload led to illness during the third pregnancy, and Ruth became its victim, although this was not realized by either parent at the time it happened. Ruth's mother developed rheumatoid arthritis, which led to a deformed limb. By the end of pregnancy, an acute depressive state also developed. She was hospitalized with each of these conditions in turn, most seriously after the birth of her third child, when she had to spend several weeks in a mental hospital. She refused drug treatment and gradually returned to resuming family life and satisfactorily caring for her children. When the baby was a few months old, she and her husband began to realize that Ruth had been neglected, although not physically, and this period of neglect emerged as important in the therapeutic consultation described below. For completeness, it is necessary to mention a third condition of Ruth's mother that gave her serious trust in doctors and may have carried her through times of despair. She had bronchiectasis as a child, and her case was one of the first to surgically remove one entire lung. The department of the hospital in charge of this took a great interest in her and provided her with an excellent sanatorium which she could use at almost any time since her marriage. If she didn't feel well, she could go and stay there for two weeks. Ruth was 8 years old when I saw her. She had a 13-year-old sister, and another 5-year-old sister. In my interview with my father, I discovered that the family's tendency toward self-healing was thwarted by Ruth's changing personality. Ruth was especially loved and even somewhat spoiled, and then she changed and now she stole. The parents felt very guilty because (they said) they saw themselves as the cause. They did not avoid problems, but, starting with the onset of their mother's third pregnancy, they saw changes taking place in Ruth as if out of the corner of their vision. I decided that first of all I could help this family by reconstructing Ruth's point of view and, if possible, curing her of her insurmountable desire to steal. To do this, I needed to achieve her own version of her experience of deprivation in a therapeutic consultation. There was nothing unusual in the consultation, except that after it Ruth stopped stealing and she began a new period of emotional growth and some improvements in her studies. Therapeutic ConsultationRuth quickly settled in. She told me about her older and younger sisters who were now at school. She said she didn't mind missing outschool, came to me and accepted my offer to play. I made a doodle(1) which Ruth quickly turned into a pram, her baby stroller. I found out that she has three dolls. “That's all I want,” she said. (2) Her doodle, which I turned into a plant. She called it geranium. (3) Her drawing of three dolls that I offered to draw. She said, “I'll try..”, “She's wrong...” I said, “Well, this isn't school, you're just showing me what you want to show.” She said, “Rosemary is the eldest. Judy has curly hair. Poppy has bangs, a ponytail and a bow.” I asked, “Would you rather be a father or a mother?” and she quickly chose to be a mother. She said, “I want as many children as I can.” This is a representation of her family through dolls. She herself is represented by Judy. In this drawing you can see that her identification with her mother gives her leg a deformed appearance. The palms also appear to be missing, which may be a reference to her mother's helplessness when she was acutely ill. (4) My doodle, which she turned into a “person”. (5) Her scribble, about which she said: “Oh! I know!" and she herself turned it into a bow and arrow. (6) My doodle that she turned into a butterfly. You can see that I didn't make any interpretations. I was just talking to her while playing.(7) Her doodle, which I made into an airplane, but she said it was a fly.(8) My doodle, which she turned into a horse. She was pleased with the result.(9) Her doodle, which I turned into an animal, she called it a giraffe.(10) My doodle: she quickly said, “Oh! I know!" and while she was turning it into a harp, she talked to me about the tape recorder. The tape recorder was on the shelf next to her, but she didn’t want to use it. (11) Her doodle, which I turned into a dancing figure. (12) My doodle, which she turned into a woman’s head. The woman's tongue was sticking out, but Ruth turned her tongue into a cigarette to make it look more respectable, I guess.(13) I turned her doodle into a plant. While I was doing this, she offered me Polo tablets, which I accepted. I said, “Are you tired of playing this?” and she said, “No, I like it.” This marked the middle phase, which corresponds to stable trust and a willingness to go deeper.(14) I felt bolder and consciously drew an intricate doodle. She added a basin around it, creating water in the basin. It was a personal fantasy, and now I could approach Ruth's dream world. I asked if she dreams about things like this. She said that she saw something like that on TV, a fish in a basin, and there was a hole in it. I insisted on the idea of ​​dreams and said, “What about fun dreams or scary dreams?” Now she turned her attention to her dreams. “My dreams are basically the same. I dream every night.” To draw this, she took a large piece of paper. In this kind of work, it always means something important is approaching. (15) Ancient ships are approaching on the water. “When my little sister was a baby, I ran away. This was before my mother's legs started to hurt. The water has risen. I carried things, food for the baby. They took it for the child. The dream ended well. Dad arrived home by car and went back to the garage. He hit the ship and broke the whole thing, and the water went away. So everything ended well.” In the middle of the description of the dream, obvious anxiety appeared before the father came and saved the situation. It is noticeable that the mother’s mouth is curved, depicting a smile. The child is walking towards his mother, or he is next to her. The baby may not have been born yet because the mother does not have a waist. The mother has no hands and a deformed leg. This is a detail of Fig. 15, reproducing the size of the drawing. I made a comment referring to the fact that she is running to her mother with hope. She feels that she could be like a mother, helping her feed her newborn. In reality, Ruth began to turn into a sick child towards the end of her mother's pregnancy. The first item stolen was jars of baby food, and then she stole money to buy baby food, which she became addicted to. In this case I already knew these