Welcome

Jacques Hochmann

Treating the Autistic Child Publication date : June 10, 2010

In France alone, more than 100,000 people (children and adults) suffer from autism. The first symptoms are usually detected during the first three years of childhood. Although there is no known cure for autism, there are forms of treatment that can significantly improve the quality of life of the autistic child. But for these to work, one must first learn to understand the child.

How do autistic children experience life? What sort of exchanges do they attempt to establish with others? What is the meaning for them of the desire for knowledge? How do they perceive the attempts that are made to teach them?

• The specific examples described here show how to overcome these children's rigid defence systems and to help them learn to enjoy thinking and imagining.

• Regarded as a reference work on autism, this book addresses both parents and professionals confronted with the challenges presented by the autistic child's psychoses and by the constant need to invent new, original responses.

Jacques Hochmann is a psychoanalyst, Professor Emeritus of child psychology at Claude Bernard University (Lyon) and an honorary physician for Lyon city hospitals. He is the author of Histoire de l'autisme (2009), Esprit, où; es-tu? Psychanalyse et neurosciences (with Marc Jeannerod, 1996) and La Consolation. Essai sur le soin psychique (1994).