The child’s indecipherable pain: bridging autistic and psychotic states in the dialogue between child psychoanalysis and infant research

In this contribution, drawing upon clinical insights from the four-times-a-week psychoanalysis of a young girl, I will highlight the centrality of the clinical relationship as the essential foundation for the construction and functioning of a psychic apparatus for thinking emotions. As it theorized, this focus becomes paramount in situations–such as autistic and psychotic states–where this psychic organization has been hindered or interrupted in its emergence and evolution, due to an interweaving of neurobiological factors that interwinds with environmental dynamics. Through an examination of constructs originating from Infant Research, in constant dialogue with child psychoanalysis, the author will illustrate the fundamental role of the earliest encounters between the child with their unique characteristics and the environment in the structuring of the mind and the capacity for the object-meeting with the Other.