‘The rigorous exploration reported in this book has shed a totally new light on the subjective experience of autistic children and hence on the primitive developmental phases of every human mind. A new metapsychological model of the psyche stems from the description here of fundamental concepts like primal depression, dismantling, adhesive identity, dimensionality as a parameter of mental functioning.’
- DIDIER HOUZEL, French Psychoanalytical Association and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Caen
'Donald Meltzer’s brilliant "lessons" supervising my analysis of a post-autistic boy have increased my psychoanalytical instruments for investigating the transference and countertransference: how to observe emotional and behavioural facts during the session (not only verbalizations), and how to seek out my own dream images in order to carry on with the analysis.'
- MARISA PELELLA MELEGA, Brazilian Psychoanalytical Society, Sao Paulo
‘Meltzer’s understanding of sense perception and language development is inspiring. He was so far ahead of his time that we are only beginning to realise how he anticipated recent developmental research. In this book, by way of clinical work, he extended the scope of psychoanalysis to wide new fields of thought.'
- MARIA RHODE, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychotherapy, Tavistock Clinic/University of East London.
