ABSTRACT
In recent years, as a result of the upsurge of interest in the syndrome described by Kanner as Early Infantile Autism, there has been a tendency in popular speech to restrict the use of the term autism to severe pathological conditions. This is not in keeping with its use in psychological literature. More important still, it misses the point that pathological autism seems to be an arrest at, or regression to, an early developmental situation which has become intensified in a rigid form. In this book autism will be used to denote an early developmental situation, as well as development which has gone awry.
