ABSTRACT
Adhesive identification operates in the “auto-sensual position” or “adhesive position”, which are more appropriate terms than “autistic position”. This psychic position is characterized by auto-sensuality, where the investment of sensations dominates, describes a defensive position at the dawn of psychic life, and which is found, amplified, in autistic states. It protects against the anxieties inherent in the perception of external reality. The process of adhesive identification is combined with the process of dismantling. From birth, as in autistic psychopathological states, the psychic state oscillates between an auto-sensual position and an openness to an objectal mode of relationship.
