ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the multiple interventions in the case of a disturbed young boy with autistic features. Having shown signs of difficulty from birth, "Leo" has always been kept under observation and has been under the care of a number of different NHS professionals. At the age of 5 years, displaying marked autistic features, he was taken into psychotherapy by a private therapist. Leo lacked psychological structure and had never developed a differentiated sense of self and other; interpretative work would have been incomprehensible and irrelevant to him in the period of treatment recounted here. Leo was first referred to the local NHS Mother and Child Clinic when he was discharged from hospital at 1 month. The clinic offers psychological and paediatric guidance for normal infants and children, neurological and psychiatric assessment and help for a variety of disturbances, and social assistance for deprived families. Analysts could hypothesize a developmental arrest coinciding with the practising sub-phase of the separation-individuation process.
