Engaging Primitive Anxieties of the Emerging Self

Howard B. Levine is a member of the faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England East, a member of the faculty and supervising analyst at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and is in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is a founding member of the Group for the Study of Psychoanalytic Process and the Boston Group for Psychoanalytic Studies, Inc. David G. Power is a founding member of the Boston Group for Psychoanalytic Studies and Past President, Supervisory and Teaching Analyst at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. He maintains a private practice in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and supervision in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• Introduction -- Finding a center of gravity via proximity with the analyst -- Daydreaming and hypochondria: when daydreaming goes wrong and hypochondria becomes an autistic retreat -- “Black holes” and “fear of breakdown” in the analysis of a fetishistic-masochistic patient -- Autistic states in patients with a narcissistic structure -- Sensual experience, defensive second skin, and the eclipse of the body: some thoughts on Tustin and Ferrari -- “Emotional” storms in autistoid dynamics -- “The very same is lost”: in pursuit of mental coverage when emerging from autistic states -- Bion and the unintegrated states: falling, dissolving, and spilling -- Inhibition of curiosity due to concern about the object’s response: difficulties in tolerating a “third position” in relation to autism -- Language used as an autistic object -- The struggle to make the autistic child human -- Beckett’s Endgame: the collapse of mental life -- The autistic object, ethology, and neuroscience: a way to a Copernican revolution in the understanding of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD)?

'Frances Tustin's influence continues to grow, not least thanks to conferences coorganized by the Frances Tustin Memorial Trust. This book, edited by Howard Levine and David Power, expands on papers from the seventh conference in Boston, in which authors of differing orientations address Tustin's contribution to the understanding of childhood autism and primitive states of mind. It will make fascinating reading for psychoanalytic workers with patients of all ages, and for anyone concerned with the foundations of experience.'- Maria Rhode, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic/University of East London, and Honorary Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society'In tribute to the creative and seminal work of Frances Tustin, this superbly edited book takes the reader into the new terrain of unrepresented states, autistic objects, black holes and many other phenomena particular to the non-neurotic patients now presenting to analysts. All clinicians, especially those working with children, will benefit from reading this book.'- Jack Novick, MA, PhD, president-elect of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, and co-author of Freedom To Choose: Two Systems of Self Regulation