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To recover from the work of time, one must go back and rejoin the beginning of the world.
—Mircea Eliade (1963, p. 154)
Time constantly turns us, stations and then repositions us, enfolds us in accordance with cadences between repetition and spontaneity, and generally pervades us with that certain sense of belongingness in history that is critical to sentient existence. However, time can only be perceived in this manner when it is seriated and integrated within a prior spatial dimension, articulating among objects of emotional significance to the mind. This is why students of time consider that there are rich, fulsome, three-dimensional spaces within which time flourishes and narrative thought gambols, and other nullified “spaces,” or non-spaces, where time barely can be maintained, intentionally falters, narrative melts down, and psychic motility comes to a near standstill.
One such nullified non-space of congealed time can be identified with the autistic-like states whose presence and influence in nonpsychotic personalities are of increasing interest to the contemporary clinician, although the temporal aspect per se has been only briefly discussed in the relevant literature (Mitrani, 1996; Ogden, 1989a, b; Tustin, 1986, 1990). I would like to remedy this lack in two ways: first, by exploring the impact of autistic pockets of null inferiority (which I will call ateriority) on the experience of time; second, by reflecting upon some unique clinical developments having to do with autistic time-keeping maneuvers and their influence upon the countertransference.
The developments to be reported occurred during the lengthy analysis of a specific patient from whom I have learned so much about time. In an earlier report (Spero, 1995), I introduced this multitalented but deeply troubled