PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH CHILDREN WHO CANNOT PLAY

All forms of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children are based on a deep understanding of the therapeutic and communicative value of play. But an outstanding characteristic of autistic children is that they cannot play and cannot communicate. This makes for difficulties in psychotherapy with them. This paper will be concerned to evolve and describe psychotherapy which is suitable for the early stages of work with these difficult-to-reach children. First of all, a brief description of the nature of autism will be given, and then some of the ways in which it has been an obstacle to the development of play will be discussed, particularly the use by such children of autistic objects and autistic shapes.