The string and the abyss: an autistic child’s experience of space

ABSTRACT

The author presents the issue of the development of internal space, as a function of the relationship of intimacy and synchrony with the caregiver, with the purpose of rendering more tolerable the experience of space outside the body. This paper argues that if this relationship does not stabilise by the end of the first year of life, an absence of representation of an internal space in the unidimensional realm might ensue. The psychoanalytic treatment of autistic children offers windows to certain developmental challenges associated with the representation of both internal and external spaces, the consequent development of dimensionality and its deviations. The case of a young autistic child in the first year of her four-session-a-week analysis is described as an illustration of the child’s struggle to overcome precipitation anxiety around the experience of falling by using her movements in the external space. The child’s autistic defences and deficits at first functioned to keep her in a liquid state, and later denied gravity by means of repetitive movements of her body while exploring the space of the analyst’s room. Her mouth was experienced as a hole to be completely blocked with either food or a pacifier, preventing exchanges with the analyst. Her subsequent compulsive use of strings in activities revealed at the same time the search for links, and her difficulty connecting and establishing communication. At the end, the analyst realised an archaic equivalence between their room and body, as a ‘concrete transference’, revealing the child’s attachment and motivation to explore it, which could be interpreted as an affective link between the analyst and patient.

KEYWORDS:

• Body
• developmental theories
• self
• autism
• child
• mental space

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Carol’s parents who relied on me to treat their child.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Usually mouth or skin sensations like the contact with sand, felt around sleeping time.

2. When I began writing the paper, Carol’s analysis had finished about five years ago. After some attempts, I succeeded in finding the parents, who were now divorced. I called each one and told them about the article. Father wanted to know more details; thus, I sent them a short-written explanation about the contents (in Portuguese) together with the draft. They agreed to its publication.

In order to guarantee anonymity, geographic data have been omitted, as well as names. Only the strictly necessary information about the family has been included throughout the text.

3. She was not allowed to leave the room before the end of the session.

4. This may be linked to Athanassiou’s ideas of the unidimensional identification, described above.

5. My office was on the sixth floor, and there was a device which allowed only a very small opening of the windows.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vera Regina J.R.M. Fonseca

Vera Regina J.R.M. Fonseca is a training and supervising analyst of the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo (BPSSP). Her PhD Doctoral thesis was titled Interpersonal relationships in Autistic Disorders: a psychoanalytic and ethologic interdisciplinary approach. She has completed Post-doctoral research on mother-infant interaction in postpartum depression, been BPSSP- Chair of the Scientific Department from 2012-2016, Director of Training from 2016-2020, Coordinator of INSPIRA (International Symposium for Psychoanalytic Interregional Research on Autistic Disorders) since its creation in 2008, and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis from 2012-2023. She has authored many papers and book chapters regarding developmental psychopathology and psychoanalysis.