Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I: Anna; Chapter 1: From missing relationship at birth to missing name and language at age 5; Chapter 2: The four critical months before the sixth birthday: from learning her name to reading and from reading to learning to speak in 1000 hours; Chapter 3: New life begins: discovering the world beyond Legos and puzzles, 1992 spring to 1993 fall; Chapter 4: Coming to America becomes a window to the world

Part II: Commentary on two remarkable journeys: one therapeutic for Dr. Diana Thielst and Anna; and one of discovery for psychiatry and psychoanalysis; Chapter 5: The recognition of autism as a developmental disorder; Kanner’s approach; A comment on terms; The etiology of early infantile autism; Two other experiences of children with autism; Gus: To Siri with Love: A Mother, Her Autistic Son, and the Kindness Of Machines; Owen: Life Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism; Interest and purpose: expanding the scope of being a doer doing; Chapter 6: At birth what becomes activated in normal development and fails to become activated in neonates with autism; Comparing adaptive qualities and capacities normally emerging in the first year of life with the more limited resources of the one-year-old infant with autism; Chapter 7: A doer doing and the core sense of self; Infant-mother face-to-face interactions and the development of conversational language; Faces – the pathway to intimacy; inanimate objects – the pathway to mastery; The pathway to a healthy body, physical functioning, and mind-body connection; Turning on to human relatedness; The turn on of adapting infants; Early steps that unfold and integrate in adaptive development

References; Index

About the Author

Joseph D. Lichtenberg, M.D., is Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, past President of the International Council for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, and a member of the Program Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Diana Thielst, M.D., is a pseudonym under which the co-author of this book is writing about the treatment of her autistic daughter. She is a scientist and musician.

Reviews

"For any parent of a child diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome or Autistic Spectrum Disorder, this is a must-read book. Part I movingly narrates a child’s gradual emergence from a world cut off from emotional intimacy into one in which she blossoms as a vitally alive, creative human being. Anna’s story, as movingly told by her mother, Dr Diana Thielst, demystifies an autistic developmental state, despite facing a barrage of social opprobrium and blame from family and professionals. In Part II, Lichtenberg employs a developmental perspective to explicate the modes of human relatedness harnessed by Dr Thielst to facilitate Anna’s emerging sense of self in relationship with others in her social world. In a clear, precise and masterful way, he details the interactive, intersubjective, and relational components active in Dr Thielst’s and Anna’s relationship that reawakened in Anna a sense of emotional relatedness, and fostered her impressive adaptive development. This book will be an indispensable resource for professionals working in this field and is warmly recommended." – Paul Renn, Forum for Independent Psychotherapists, author of The Silent Past and the Invisible Present: Memory, Trauma, and Representation in Psychotherapy