ABSTRACT
The children whose material the author discusses in this chapter all had a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder, though they withdrew to different degrees from relationships with other people. The three children had all developed beyond the state of autism proper, though two of them, Anthony and Lina, continued to rely, to different degrees, on the physicality of autistic objects and autistic shapes. In summary, then, conflicts surrounding the Oedipal constellation—which Lina and Anthony seemed to hold responsible for their own sense of endangered existence—appeared to be central to all three children's narcissistic retreats. Both Lina and Anthony were in thrall to a narcissistic part of their personality that appeared to be modelled on what they most feared—a damaged, hollow, engulfing mother in Lina's case, and a sadistic, traumatizing father in Anthony's. In contrast, Anthony's experience of the Oedipal couple was one in which narcissistically-absorbed parents were seen as mirror images of each other who cruelly excluded him.
