ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Donald Meltzer's model founded on the geometrical notion of dimensionality, before considering to what extent topology can help to gain a better understanding of what happens in the world of autism to which Meltzer applies the notion of dimensionality. Several meta-psychological concepts stem from Meltzer's exploration of psychic space: the geography of phantasy, the compartments of the internal mother, and the dimensionality of mental functioning. Meltzer's is a geometrical model based upon the concept of dimension: the child constructs his or her internal world by successive additions of one spatial dimension to another; time makes up the fourth dimension. By contrast, the three-torus model is a topological one based on the concept of orientability and non-orientability. The topological concept of non-orientability allows for the description of spaces—whatever their dimension—in which there can be no differentiation between interior and exterior.
