ABSTRACT
The usual distinction between psychosis and neurosis is that in psychosis awareness of commonly agreed reality is massively blocked or distorted, and in neurosis it is less so. However, in working with neurotic children, I have invariably come upon a ‘pocket’ of functioning in which awareness of reality was so blocked or distorted that it justified the term ‘psychotic’. What I have learned from psychotic children about the autistic processes which blocked awareness of reality (encapsulated children), or distorted it (confusional children), has enabled my work with neurotic children to be more effective.
