Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment

In this article the authors report insights into autism developed through their extensive experience of psychoanalytic therapy with children with autism. The fi rst stages of body psychic development are seriously disrupted by this pathology, resulting in primitive anxieties of falling and of being liquefi ed. These anxieties are connected to the fragile development of body ego and of its related spatiotemporal organisation. The changes in children observed by the authors during the therapeutic process lead them to offer a psychodynamic assessment tool, which revolves principally around the development of body ego. After the initial state of 'severe autism', the authors describe three stages: the stage of 'recovery of the skin' (Bick); the established 'symbiotic phase', subdivided into 'vertical then horizontal splitting of the body ego'; and fi nally the stage of 'individuation'. First, the authors describe the principal psychoanalytic approaches to autism and refl ect on the links possible with nonpsychoanalytic work.     

SELF-INTEREST,CREDIBILITY, AND MESSAGE SELECTION IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION: A RESEARCH NOTE

This paper reports the findings of a recent survey to determine the effectiveness of efforts by the Library of Congress to communicate with its employees about the Library's Affirmative Action program. Results indicated relatively low levels of employee information about the program. While the perceived credibility of the source was positively correlated with the amount of information absorbed, perceived self-interest in the Affirmative Action program was not.