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In recent publications about autism, psychoanalysis is barely mentioned and is often seen as outdated. In particular, psychoanalysis is accused of putting additional blame on mothers, who are already suffering enough, and of offering nothing but expensive therapies that amount to little in the end. They claim latest research to have shown that autism is basically a complicated neurological rather than a psychodynamic disorder. The name that is often associated with a psychoanalytic approach to dealing with autism is that of Bruno Bettelheim: what is not mentioned is that Bettelheim was the first ever actually to attempt a systematic residential therapy of autistic children. However, his concept of establishing a friendly and supportive therapeutic environment tailored entirely to the needs of the children is, in fact, exactly the same as those therapies and training programmes that want nothing to do with psychoanalysis, and thus have no idea what they owe to it.
There is also never any mention (presumably because it is not even noticed) that psychoanalysts have continued their work following the publication of Bettelheim's last monograph on the treatment of autistic children in 1967. Very different theories and concepts of treatment have been developed, illustrated with detailed case studies. Let me mention only Margaret Mahler, Francis Tustin, Esther Bick, Donald Meltzer, Thomas Ogden, Anne Alvarez, Maria Rhode from the English-speaking world, and Maud Mannoni, Rosine and Robert Lefort, Geneviève Haag, Piera Aulagnier and Marie-Christine Laznik-Penot from France. The list could go on. Psychoanalysis is not criticized by modern autism research, which would be legitimate and useful, it is simply ignored. This is not only wrong, but it also does not help autistic children.
Sybille Janert does not directly address this division of opinion, and she is right not to do so, because, if she had, her book would have been unlikely to attract many readers. Psychoanalysis is her