1 Introduction: autism, personality and the family

Autism and Personality

Taking a psychoanalytic and developmental approach, Autism and Personality outlines in considerable detail the new developments in therapeutic techniques used by the Tavistock Autism Team and Workshop to treat autistic children. It also underlines the importance of support for parents and siblings, who are all too often under considerable stress.

The book presents fresh ideas about the importance of personality for the developmental course of the condition, and the implications for psychotherapeutic technique. Using case vignettes to illustrate die theoretical ideas emerging from the Workshop, coupled with case studies which highlight the patient's changing contact with the therapist, it gives a fascinating picture of the individuality of each child and of the sensitivity and skill required for each treatment.

Accessible to professionals and also to parents, Autism and Personality is a valuable insight into the nature and course of this condition and its treatment.

Anne Alvarez is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Coconvenor of the Tavistock Clinic Autism Service and Workshop. She is the author of Live Company: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Autistic, Borderline, Deprived and Abused Children (1992).

Susan Reid is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the Child and Family Department of the Tavistock Clinic, involved in the training of child psychotherapists. She founded the Autism Research Workshop in 1986 and is Co-convenor of the Workshop and of the Tavistock Autism Service. She is the editor of Developments in Infant Observation: the Tavistock approach (1997).

Contributors: Pamela Bartram; Janet Bungener; Judith Edwards; Carol Hanson; Trudy Klauber; Branka Pecotic; Michele Pundick; Maria Rhode; Biddy Youell.