Autistic States in ChildrenFrances Tustin (1913-1994) was one of the first professionally trained child psychotherapists in Britain. Although internationally recognised for her pioneering therapeutic work with autistic children, her approach is considered by some to be controversial, as her psychogenic view of childhood autism challenged the belief that it is biological and genetic. Autistic States in Children is widely regarded as a vitally important work for understanding the causes of autism in young children. Vividly describing her clinical encounters with autistic children, Tustin argued that autistic states were above all self-protective ones. In her observational studies, she noted how autistic children's interaction with physical objects, such as keys, toy cars, or other play items, had a rigid and ritualistic quality, far removed from the typical kind of fantasy play seen in other children. Such objects are not used by autistic children for their intended purpose, Tustin argued, but rather in sensation-dominated ways that interfere with mental development. She also drew a fundamental distinction between two autistic groups: an ‘encapsulated’ group, which is withdrawn and non-verbal, and an ‘entangled’ group, who are hyperactive and chaotic but have some language. Autistic States in Children influenced not only those in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis but countless others who have contact with autistic children, especially families, and remains essential reading for anyone seeking a creative and compelling understanding of autism. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Maria Rhode. |
From inside the book
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... experience bears directly on the current psychoanalytic interest in unrepresented states). She also memorably illustrated the primitive levels that can underlie many symptoms in patients who do not have autism, including psychosomatic ...
... experience of children and adults who were not on the spectrum. These anxieties included falling forever, spilling out, and losing parts of the body, and had been described in other contexts by Bick (1968) and Winnicott (1949, 1963) ...
... , illustrates Tustin's capacity to make links between an emotional experience and its bodily underpinnings in a masterly way that was characteristic of her, but seems natural and unforced. For example, when Sam wanted to stand.
... experience; she could then convey the human essence of patients who seemed to have no essence. Chapter 17, 'Thinkings', concerns her patient Peter, who came to twice-weekly treatment as a mute six-year-old. This chapter shows the ...
... experience. For this reason, although I discovered repetitions on rereading the book, I have allowed some of them to remain so that the reader can consider the same finding in a different context, and perhaps understand it more fully ...
Contents
Autosensuous aspects of psychogenic childhood psychosis | |
Autogenerated encapsulation | |
Autistic objects | |
Confusional objects | |
The asymbolic nature of autosensuous states | |
Awareness in autistic states | |
Psychotherapy with autistic states in children | |
Transference phenomena in autistic states | |
16 | |
Thinkings | |
Confusional entanglement | |
Autosensuousness as a basis for classification of psychogenic childhood psychosis | |
Psychodynamics and treatment of autistic states | |
The pathological operation of autosensuousness | |
Psychological birth and psychological catastrophe | |
The struggles of an autistic child to develop a mind of his | |
Autistic elements in neurotic disorders of childhood | |
Concluding remarks | |
Index | |