PLENARY PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS

 

 

Kate Barrows

 

Narcissism and Autism: Poles Apart or on the Same Spectrum?

Thursday, 19th July, 2012 - 9.30 am - 11.00 am

 

In this paper I will try to elucidate the links between narcissistic and autistic features. I see some autistic defences as the concrete, bodily expression of defences employed at a higher symbolic level by narcissistic patients. For instance the narcissist’s turning to a mafia-type of gang leader, or to an idealised destructive internal object for protection can be compared to the autistic child’s clutching a hard toy for protection or to hold themselves together. I shall therefore consider the question of whether the difference between autistic and narcissistic defences is primarily structural or whether it has more to do with the degree of concreteness, the capacity to symbolise. I shall discuss the clinical implications, and how they may affect the analyst’s capacity  to help the patient to become more alive.

I shall bring  examples, mainly from adult patients with autistic or narcissistic features, to develop the theme.

 

 

Cathy Urwin

 

What do we hope for from Child Psychotherapy for Autistic Spectrum Children ... do we get it?

Thursday, 19th July, 2012 - 11.30 am - 1.00 pm

 

In child mental health services, many approaches to helping children with autistic spectrum disorder and their families (ASD) focus on management and on the particular sensory or cognitive deficits thought to contribute to behavioural and emotional disturbance. . By contrast, child psychotherapy can give particular attention to the emotional and phenomenological experience of ASD children, and to establishing a communicative framework through which the child’s capacity for tolerating emotional experience can be enhanced. This paper presents findings from an ongoing evaluation of child psychotherapy with eight children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) seen within the National Health Service clinics in the UK. The assessment and evaluation model used (the ‘Hopes and Expectations for Treatment Approach’ –HETA-, Urwin, 2007) involves parents and psychotherapists establishing realistic expectations for treatment based on a shared understanding of each child’s experience and characteristics. Positive benefits from psychotherapy treatment included improvement in the children’s capacity for emotional regulation and reflection on emotional states and consequent improvements in the quality of family life. Using clinical examples from three cases, the presentation discusses modifications in psychotherapy technique appropriate to work with ASD, giving particular attention to work in the countertransference. Similarities and differences between the phenomena of ‘second skin’ defenses and autistic objects are discussed.

 

 

Maria Rhode

 

Learning to Walk Down the Corridor: Body Image, Catastrophic Anxieties and Supportive Internal Figures

Thursday, 19th July, 2012 - 5.00 pm - 6.30 pm

 

This paper addresses the difficulties in learning to walk down the corridor encountered by two children of immigrant parents: a four-year-old boy with a diagnosis of autism seen in intensive psychotherapy, and a 17-month-old girl at risk of autism seen for parent-toddler work. The catastrophic anxieties Tustin described in relation to bodily separateness are discussed in terms of managing the physical transition between waiting-room and therapy room. Three levels of relationship to parental figures could be observed that appeared to be related to the children's capacity to move through space. The first concerned support by parental voices speaking in harmony; the second concerned an experience of parental figures whose separate existence did not imply the child's bodily mutilation; and the third concerned the capacity to re-establish good internal parents in spite of Oedipal conflicts. The children's difficulties in managing transitions are discussed in relation to Tustin's  observation that a painful experience of migration can be a feature of their parents' history

 

 

Dr JoAnn Culbert-Koehn

 

Frances Tustin and Louise Bourgeois - An Artist's Response to Mismanaged Psychological Birth

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 9.00 am - 10.30 am

 

Frances Tustin states clearly that art can sometimes be used to work through mismanaged psychological birth. Louise Bourgeoise used her sculptures, drawings and journals to transform her early misery and keep herself alive. This presentation will be an in depth study of the artist's work.

 

 

Dr Anne Alvarez

 

The Birth and Rebirth of Psychic Life

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 5.30 pm - 7.00 pm

 

Three clinical examples illustrate a particular form of aliveness where  coming to  life seems to involve an interpersonal relationship and the life is facilitated by someone else. In the first instance  Robbie,’s `uncle’ coaxed him out of the deep freeze; in the second,  my emotional welcome finally brought colour into his cheeks and a light to his eye. With Jesse, for a moment at least, it was the  other way  around: a zapper  represented him bringing me to life. Gradually, in  normal infant development, such object relations get internalized, so the relationship to a psychic-life-giving object is intrapersonal, not only interpersonal
And the communication is  reciprocal: the  baby changes the way the parent unfolds, and the parent changes the way the baby unfolds.
However, as we know from countless infant observations, newborn babies vary enormously in the amount of life force, even psychic life force with which they  enter the world. Some have a stronger sense already that the world out there is fascinating and draws them to it like a magnet. Some speculations on the relevance of some neuroscience are included.

 

 

Alina Schellekes

 

Arid Mental Landscapes and Avid Craving for Human Contact - Beckettian and Analytic Narratives

Saturday, 21st July, 2012 - 9.30 am - 11.00 am

 

The lecture will focus on the to-and-fro oscillations between void, depleted  states of mind, that so often are an intrinsic part of a sense of extreme  emotional isolation, and the never ending search for human contact and intimacy. These dialectics will be approached through theoretical thinking, clinical vignettes and some of Samuel Beckett's writings.

 

 

Neville Symington

 

How Autism Thwarts the Making of a Relationship

Saturday, 21st July, 2012 - 11.30 am - 1.00 pm

 

In this paper I distinguish between the human beings as organisms that require food, drink and shelter for survival and the making of a relationship not to serve this need of the organism but for its own sake. 
I examine the way in which autosensuousness, as Frances Tustin has explained it, smothers the capacity to make a relationship.  I also examine how the revision of Tustin’s theory towards the end of her life can be extended to encompass the deficiency in relating which is the core of autism. 

 

IMPORTANT DATES

 

 

Registration Opens

1 September 2011

 

Early Bird Registration Closes

18 May 2012

 

Registration Closes

16 July 2012

 

Conference Begins

19 July 2012