ABSTRACT
It will have become clear that in studying primary autism we are studying an embryonic ‘Self’. The inner sense of ‘linking’ provided by satisfying experiences of encircling the nipple in the mouth, of being encircled in the mother’s arms, and of being held within the ambience of the mother’s caring attention seems to be a vital first step from which integration can begin to take place. This is integration of the various parts of the personality, and also integration of the emergent self into a situation where other ‘wills’ exist apart from his own. If this sense of primal linking is lacking, processes exclusively centred on the child’s own body compensate for the lack. These become a closed system for which a dog circling round itself to catch its own tail seems an apt image. Lacking basic integrity, and the consequent introduction to reality, the child’s development is uncontrolled and ‘false’.
