ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the clinical process in the early psychoanalytic treatment of autistic children. It explains a case study of Sophia a three year old girl. Sophia's feeding, motor development, sphincter control, and sleep patterns seemed adequate, while her language was limited. She did not recognise colours, was unable to count, had no initiatives and was incapable of choosing between proposals: she responded "I don't know". The poignant issue of maternal mind-blindness comes up in her mother's spontaneous remark that she did not talk to Sophia when she was a baby "because, anyhow, they do not understand". In the diagnostic interviews she attempted to cut paper: she held the scissors with both hands leaving none to hold the paper with, whereby it ran off and she could not cut it. After seven months in treatment, devitalisation and crumbling had lessened and it was possible to engage in dialogue with Sophia; she still pronounced badly, but her vocabulary had expanded hugely.
