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A noteworthy volume, Autistic Phenomena and Unrepresented States: Explorations in the Emergence of Self, engages the reader in thinking about the complex, and often difficult-to-conceptualize, phenomenon of psychogenic autistic states. The 10 authors in this volume bring contemporary theorizing and new dimensions to the ongoing clinical challenges of working psychoanalytically with autistic phenomena. Much more than a primer, but that, too, this book gathers together highly esteemed international clinicians to open up a world of interconnected thought.
Howard B. Levine, in his elaborate introduction, “Making the Unthinkable Thinkable: Vitalization, Reclamation, Containment, and Representation,” addresses questions of definition. What exactly are unrepresented states? He writes: “The capacity to create psychic representations has increasingly been seen not as a given, but as a developmental achievement” (p. 3).
Unrepresented states are states in which the internal world of meaning is held in abeyance, and meaning cannot be made nor experience comprehended. These states raise important questions: about the beginnings of psychic life, finding object relatedness, and the pain of coming into physical being. These early unfathomable traumas call for clinical response.
Unrepresented states also fall outside of what was deemed classically analyzable, but the works in this volume represent an ongoing paradigm shift, begun very early on by Melanie Klein, toward the reconceptualization of clinical possibilities. Diagnostically, Howard B. Levine posits unrepresented states within autism, Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and other non-neurotic conditions, such as psychosomatic disorders, perversions,
addictions, primitive character disorders, and the autistic enclaves that exist in us all.
A tribute to Frances Tustin permeates these essays. Tustin is best known for her pioneering work on the psychoanalytic treatment of childhood psychogenic autism. She emphasized the centrality