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Punishing Iron had ceased to develop normally from the time he was two years of age. As time went by, he demonstrated symptoms that clearly pointed to an autistic psychotic development, and his parents described him as a restless boy, difficult to reach — health personnel described him as a boy with an atypical development and poorly developed language distinguished by echolalia, neologisms and a lack of personal pronouns. His anxiety was of an archaic type, described as “doomsday-anxiety”. Under the assumption that he was suffering from a central nervous dysfunction with autistic traits which had affected his speech center, he had had special education from 5 to 12 years of age.
When he was 13 years old, I, inspired by his music therapists, suggested to his parents that he should begin weekly art-interpretation therapy, which they agreed to. This would obviously have to be a long-term project, 4 years at least. I will describe the first phase of the treatment.1
The first three months of therapy consisted of my reading fairy-tales aloud while he drew, using crayons. By reading fairy-tales aloud I hoped to establish a channel of communication.2 During the first few sessions I read from the fairy-tales of the Brothers Grimm in an even, monotonous voice with my face partly turned away from him, as if I was just reading out into the air. I did not attempt to make contact with him beyond reading aloud. He slowly grew accustomed to the therapy room and accepted the fact that he was supposed to sit at the desk and draw. When he drew, he exerted a lot of pressure on the crayon, and mostly drew 4–5 cm long stripes in various colors. (picture no. 1). He was silent, except for abrupt statements like “Want juice!” or tentative remarks like: “Irons — twice as hot as the hottest thing in the world?” Sometimes he would utter ominous