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This research studied the methods for treating affects in a group of twenty children consulting in a pluridisciplinary child psychiatry clinic ( cmpp) for difficulties with spelling. We investigated the quality of their affects and how they were expressed as well as the defense mechanisms liable to inhibit them when they were linked to drive representations. The analysis of the Children’s Apperception Test ( cat) revealed the paucity of content in their responses, marked by a restriction in fantasmatic expression and affects which tended to limit themselves to factual descriptions. They were expressed through the children’s body sensations or sensory impressions while their discourse spoke only of perceptions. This association evokes the action of repressive defense mechanisms in regard to affects, inhibiting the libidinal investment of the object and creating neutralized representations, something which might be due to difficulties in the process of developing affect expression.