Passion is described as a constitutive element of being a psychoanalyst, a human attribute and a concept contiguous to creativity. The indispensable variations and modulations of technique are considered with reference to clinical practice with patients grouped less by their belonging to a specific diagnostic category than according to particular states of the Self, relating to autistic withdrawal. Such variations and modulations in technique allow us the vital use of this therapeutic factor. The analyst's passion is considered both as a resource for the «maintenance» of the analyst's Self and as a potentially transformative function, which expresses itself through the activation in patients of processes that integrate divided and encapsulated areas of the Self.

KEYWORDS: Autism, autistic encapsulation, nonhuman environments, passion, primitive agonies, refuges of the mind.