ABSTRACT
Many years ago, P. Bergman and S. K. Escalona described a group of children with unusual sensitivities: Colors, bright lights, noises, unusual sounds, qualities of material, experiences of equilibrium, of taste, of smell, of temperature, seemed to have an extraordinarily intensive impact upon these children at a very early age. Although psychotherapy with people on the autistic spectrum can indeed involve slow progress, there are also many instances in which limited clarificatory work over a few sessions is all that is required. Anxiety is almost always a significant problem for people on the autistic spectrum, although this is sometimes avoided by the person establishing an extremely restricted lifestyle with minimal contact with others. This is what drives the rigidity of thought and behaviour, and the pervasive avoidance. People with autistic spectrum traits tend to experience high levels of social anxiety, along with deficits in processing social information.
