Sensory interweavings and relational openings in clinical work with autistic children

In this article, the author aims to shed new light on how sensoriality can be considered and deployed in the treatment of severely autistic children. Whereas psychoanalysis has explored in detail the defensive function that sensoriality can have for these patients, the author puts forward the idea that this can be used to further the differentiation and structuration of the body ego. Through some detailed clinical material, drawn from the psychotherapy of a five-year-old girl, the author sets out to illustrate how work on the different sensations can lead to relational openings that are initially specific to each sensory channel and then more general, as well as how the access to otherness emerges from this work on sensations. Much of the article is devoted to "technical" questions: in fact, for these processes to be carried out successfully, the analyst must situate himself in and intervene as closely as possible to sensoriality. It is in this way that the various sensory flows are gradually (re-)inscribed in the relational circuit and can begin to be (re-)connected with each other.