Anne Alverez integrates modern psychoanalytic theory with new findings in
infant development and infant psychiatry to shed new light on ways of
understanding autistic, psychotic and severely disturbed children and
adolescents.Children whose minds as well as bodies have been damaged by the intrusions
of sexual abuse, violence or neglect, and others, quite different, who are
handicapped by their own mysterious sensitivities to more minor deprivations,
may experience a type of black despair and cynicism that require long-term
treatment and test the stamina of the psychotherapist to the utmost. In Live
Company, Anne Alvarez reflects on thirty years' experience of treating
autistic, psychotic and borderline children and adolescents by the methods of
psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Central to the book is the moving story on an
autistic child's long struggle between sanity and madness, in which the author
describes the arduous journey that she as therapist and he as patient made
towards new understanding and his partial recovery. Modern developments in
psychoanalytic theory and technique mean that such children can be treated with
some success. In the book the author discusses these developments, and also
describes some of the areas of convergence and divergence between organicist
and psychodynamicist theories of autism.; Particularly important is her integration of psychoanalytic theory with the
new findings in infant development and infant psychiatry. This has enabled her
to formulate some new and exciting ideas and speculate on the need for some
additions to established theory. Anne Alvarez has produced a professionally
powerful and englightening book, drawn from her extensive experience as a child
psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, which will be of interest to all
professionals involved with children and adolescents as well as anyone
interested in madness and the growth of the mind.
