Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment |
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Authors: | GENEVIé VE HAAG,SYLVIE TORDJMAN,RE DUPRAT,SIMONE URWAND,FRANOISE JARDIN,MARIE-CHRISTINE CL,ANNICK CUKIERMAN,CATHERINE DRUON,ANIK MAUFRAS DU CHATELLIER,JACQUELINE TRICAUD,ANNE-MARIE DUMONT |
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Affiliation: | 18, rue Emile Duclaux, F-75015 Paris, France;Department of Child Psychiatry, 154 rue de Chatillon, F-35000 Rennes, France;43bis rue des Entrepreneurs, F-75015 Paris, France;7 bd du Temple, F-75003 Paris, France;205 avenue Jean Jaurés, F-92140 Clamart, France;29 avenue Anatole France, F-94220 Charenton, France;4 rue Masseran, F-75007 Paris, France;9 rue Saint-Merri, F-75004 Paris, France;31 rue d'Angiviller, F-78100 Versailles, France;CMP, 3 rue de Lisbonne, F-75008 Paris, France |
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Abstract: | 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. |
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Keywords: | autistic children cognitive/psychoanalytic converging viewpoints body ego skin formation eye contact vertical splitting horizontal splitting speech spatial exploration object exploration |
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