ABSTRACT
This chapter, which is a considerably revised version of a paper published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (1966, pp. 53–67), concerns a particular type of elemental depression manifested by autistic children. Rank and Putnam (1953) used Edward Bibring’s term “primal depression” (1953) for this type of depression. Winnicott (1958) has called it “psychotic depression”; Margaret Mahler (1961) has written of such children’s “grief”. My own work has confirmed that this elemental depression has been crucial in the massive arrest of emotional and cognitive development 40which afflicts psychogenic autistic children. Clinical material will now be presented which illustrates the specific characteristics of such autistic children’s grief, and demonstrates why it has been so damaging to their psychic development.
