The reclusiveness sometimes associated with school phobia in the adolescent adds to its severity. Meeting a housebound adolescent in consultation has something paradoxical about it that echoes specific clinical features of this disorder. Three possible meeting formats are suggested, depending on the degree of avoidance and the dialectic of container and contained. Establishing a therapeutic frame in such situations confronts us with the pitfall of a paradoxical bond.

Adolescence, 2026, 44, 2, 269-279.