Intimacy and Autism: An Apparent Paradox

The concept of intimacy includes the idea of being open to others. But autistic patients have a hard time dealing with relationships, and for a therapist to become "autistic" is therefore an emotional paradox. Intimacy is a condition that involves others and requires the ability to maintain a condition in which emotional background noise doesn't interfere, and the body is free enough of anxiety to allow people to get onto the same wavelength. For psychoanalysts, the ambiguity of the situation lies in the fact that, as in any therapy, becoming "autistic" with autistic people means seeking empathy with the patient, but also protecting ourselves, sometimes in an unconscious way, from contact with overwhelming feelings. So, oscillating in a contiguous-autistic state of mind is both a positive and a negative therapeutic fact; on the other hand, maintaining the paradox can be a valuable tool in psychoanalytic therapy.