Refine
Language
Document Type
- Articles (308)
- Books (25)
- Reviews (17)
- Dissertations (16)
- Forewords (12)
- Interviews (7)
- Collections (1)
- Event Reports (1)
- Necrologues (1)
Year of publication
- 2005 (388) (remove)
This paper proposes that psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be a helpful form of treatment for certain autistic children. Some of the misconceptions surrounding this kind of treatment are discussed. The literature identifying a particular sub-group of autistic children is then reviewed and the characteristics of this group, and the relationship of their difficulties to early trauma, are described. Using clinical material from work with a child who probably fell within this sub-group, and who had very marked autistic features, the paper illustrates the importance of the therapist taking an active role in the therapy and how this helped the child to emerge from his withdrawn state. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of introducing themes of aggression, and of this being done in a playful way. The impact of trauma on children's development, with particular reference to the acquisition of language, is considered. The role of sibling rivalry as a factor is emphasised.
Traumatic social violence provokes adaptive transubjective phenomena of banalization, familiarity and obviousness, which can be understood as a 'defence through ambiguity' that leads to an 'adaptation to whatsoever'. In a state of ambiguity there is numbing of critical thinking and of the alarm mechanisms. During the psychoanalytic process with survivors of social violence (torture, etc.) we can find a secret refusal of the external alienating situation in the intrapsychic representation of an 'object to be saved', an object of concern. In this paper, Ferenczi's concept of 'identification with the aggressor' (introjection of the culpability of the abuser on the child's subjectivity) is compared with this clinical experience. We try to understand and challenge through comprehension and insight the subjective consequences of traumatic social violence, in the three spaces of subjectivity (intra-, inter-, trans-) considering psychic dynamics in relation to reality contexts.