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In this book, comprising fifteen articles plus a short conclusion, Giannotti and De Astis have brought together the results of ten years' work on psychopathology in early infancy, and in particular on autism and child psychosis, which illustrates how psychoanalytical thought and method can be used creatively even in extreme situations, not protected by the safety nets of acquired settings and wellestablished contexts.
The reader is presented with the story of the authors' encounter with suffering in infancy in its most primitive and catastrophic form: in those cases where the children on the one hand, and the parents on the other, have no hope of being able to modify an intolerably painful situation, and where, to varying degrees, all of the parties are “psychologically unborn”. The experience described to us is a research project carried out in families which are seriously deprived and damaged, in order to try and trigger off a movement of growth in the children and in the parents. Taking Winnicott as a point of reference, the authors claim that this kind of growth cannot occur without intervening both on the infant and its environment, since the care offered by the latter (mainly by the mother) provides the child with the basis for human functioning and symbolic activity.
To make this theoretical premiss as concrete as possible, Giannotti and De Astis take a case of extremely grave psychopathology in an infant and work from the very beginning with the mother-child couple, thus including the mother in an initial phase of the child's treatment; once the most favourable conditions have been established to ensure the autonomous growth of both parties, the mother starts her own individual therapy. Where possible, the father is invited to take part in the therapy programme too, so that all