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Analysis Day 4: As William moves towards his teenage years, he enters what is termed as the counter dependent stage of his life. Typically between the ages of about seven and twelve, he would be looking to do more things on his own away from parents and develop individual interests. This should be a time of exploration and the next step on the way to independence before peer relationships become important. It often brings complications if previous developmental phases were dysfunctional, as they were with William. Instead of embracing his autonomy, he was awkward and lacking the social skills needed to enjoy it.

William’s story unfolds in Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 3.

I remember very little about the time of my life before I became a teenager. The years between seven or eight and twelve are a blur and details are hard to come by. We spent a lot of time outside as kids did in those days, unsupervised but punished if someone complained about us, as they often did. We played soccer and other games, built dens and it was my job to stop my younger brothers getting into trouble. That’s really all I remember until I reached the age of twelve when I went to a new school. The time before that had been spent in the same small school I went to at five, where we had wooden desks with inkwells and we wrote with pens that needed to be dipped in the well. It was a place of comfort but I had a real fear of the teachers there. They were old school but looking back now were also fair…

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