Main description:

This book discusses psychoanalytic understanding of childhood autism and of autistic aspects of adult patients. It describes a wide range of adult patients who are highly articulate, successful people having nonetheless an encapsulated autistic area which blocks communication with others.

Contents:

Introduction -- Autism in Children -- A psychiatric approach to autism and its relationship to a psychoanalytic perspective -- A significant element in the development of psychogenic autism -- Finding the wavelength: tools in communication with children with autism -- Analysis of a little girl with an autistic syndrome -- "Playful" therapy: working with autism and trauma -- The creation of psychic space, the "nest of babies" fantasy and the emergence of the Oedipus complex -- Joining the human family -- Autistic Features in Adults -- Autistic phenomena in neurotic patients -- The rhythm of safety -- The autistic object: its relationship with narcissism in the transference and countertransference of neurotic and borderline patients -- Working analytically with autistic-contiguous aspects of experience -- On the survival function of autistic manoeuvres in adult patients -- Keeping the ghosts at bay: an autistic retreat and its relationship to parental losses -- Finding the bridge: psychoanalysis with two adults with autistic features 1