The Protest of a 6-Month-Old Girl: Is This a Prodrome of Autism?

Abstract

This article describes the infant-parent psychotherapy of a 6-month-old girl. This anxious, almost inconsolable, baby girl used withdrawal, dissociation, self-harm, auto-stimulation, and passive to active reversal, especially with her mother. Both her parent's feared she was autistic. Indeed, the baby, as if protesting what she felt to be a painful interaction with her mother, developed defenses that, to the author, looked autistic. During five months of infant-parent psychotherapy, her parents learned to contemplate her emotional life and helped her become a normally developing toddler. This case raises the question: If the child's defenses had become entrenched, would she have eventually been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder?

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Stella Acquarone, Ph.D., for providing consultation for this treatment and for her helpful comments in preparing this article. She also wants to thank Kerry Kelly Novick, Nurit Yirmiya, and especially Susan Warshaw and the editorial staff of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy for their thoughtful suggestions about the article.