ABSTRACT
The primitive anxieties of the emerging self to which autistic children are prone have been described by a number of therapists. If the core primitive anxieties in autistic children include fear of falling forever, of liquefying and spilling out into nothingness, of annihilation, of being lost in unbounded space, and of dissolving, then questions are raised about Asperger's children. Asperger's children may also have these kinds of autistic encapsulations in response to infantile traumas. Shortly, clinicians consider some of the more autistic-like defences against primitive anxieties that can be identified in the functioning of Asperger's children. In tandem with and blending into these separation and annihilation-related anxieties, the Asperger's child typically experiences anxieties with a distinct persecutory flavour. The typical structure for Asperger's children is for relational anxieties to be very much in the foreground, with existential autistic anxieties operative in the background and behind-the-scenes.
