ABSTRACT
The pursuit of a safe bodily–mental container, alongside the development of a defining psychic membrane, is a life-long, arduous task for the autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) child and fraught with danger. It is created by ASD children in the process of emerging from their autistic states. In fact, the process of acquiring an analyst-based coverage can prove to be quite traumatic for both child and analyst. For the ASD child, emerging into the world of human relationships is a terrifying experience at worst, an uncanny one at best. The realities of separateness, dependence, mental boundaries, transience, and triangulation often shock the child back into the familiar, "very same", retreat of the autistic encapsulation. The appearance of an analyst-based mantling, while threatening to constitute a difficult impasse or a defensive pathological organization, might also pave the way for a better recognition of the psychic, physiological, and behavioral properties of the other and, through him, of the self.
