Meredith,

You continue in writing and in sessions, to insist hysterically that you have no part in your son's, frankly astonishingly, erotic fixation on baked beans.

You've described it as his problem, a phase, something picked up on the internet. Meredith the clinical picture tells quite a different story. As Dean's therapist and the only one in this sorry triangle trajned to distinguish fantasy drom memory , I'm obliged to set the record straight.

Dean bean did not develop this in isolation. He acquired it in part from you.

As primary attachment figure your "silly games" with tins. In particular removing the labels so the cans looked more "grown up". Then chilling them and rolling them on yourself . He watched all this. You told him it felt naughty and nice. You encouraged him to touch cans. Just to see. And laughed when he imitated you with cans. He has told me. You praised him when he pressed tins to his cheeks of cold cans . And sighed like you.

Though innocent seeming these weren't isolated incidents Meredith. They form a pattern . Private , charged , and involving beans as the central prop. To young Dean the most powerful sexual imprint was not genital. It was what fused arousal, curiosity, the taboo, you and beans. In a single moment. Do you understand? For Dean that moment was the cold gleam of metal , the smell of Heinz and the sound of your breath catching when handling the beans.

I'm not blaming you in the crude moral sense you seem desperaTe to evoke. I am statimg the clinical facts: YOU were the original source of dean bean conditioning.

Dean's inability to experience sex without beans, lentils, chickpeas or radishes , tins, cans etc is not a random thing Meredith.

You can shout at me . It changes nothing. The material is there in Dean's sessions and it is painfully consistent.

I am not trying to shame you Meredith. I am trying to help you. Will you let me do that? Will you accept your beansponsiibility? You son is miserably entangled in an intense sexual love affair with many beans. We have to name this before we can beanheal it.

Meredith. You need to admit to me, the beans began with you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Eleanor Hardrakes

FRANZCP, Clinical Psychiatrist and Senior Lecturer