Treating Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder

by Tami Pollak (Editor)

Treating Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Psychoanalytic and Developmental Approach outlines a unique model, the product of over twenty years of experience in working with children with this diagnosis within "Shaked" - a multi-professional educational-therapeutic day-car unit in Israel.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of this model and the psychoanalytic-developmental perspective underpinning it, which weaves together the various professional views into a single fabric integrating a therapeutic network which encompasses each and every aspect of the child's development. Drawing on psychoanalytic and developmental psychology, each chapters is devoted to the daily problems that arise when working with ASD children, such as weaning and toilet training, as well as the effects of ASD on wider family functioning, all in the context of administering treatment to young children in day-care and other non-residential settings.

Treating Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder offers an essential, practical guide which will be an asset to any clinician working with young children on the autistic spectrum, as well as the parents and siblings of these children.

Review
This extra-ordinary book presents an original therapeutic-pedagogic framework for ASD children. This framework, theoretically informed by a psychoanalytic-developmental approach, dives into the depths of this severe, enigmatic and multifaceted disorder, joining its most subtle non-linguistic nuances in order to turn non-language into language, one in which these children can think and be thought about. The breathtaking clinical examples presented throughout the book not only enrich the understanding of autism, but illustrate how, by means of this kind of therapeutic work, the hidden developmental potential can be restored and realized. No less importantly, it brings back into a field that for many years was managed in terms of "accepting the unchangeable" – an area of hope.

Dana Amir, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Supervising and Training Analyst in the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Head of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, Haifa University.

"This is a ground-breaking book. The Shaked kindergartens are unique in providing a wide variety of psychoanalytically-informed multi-disciplinary interventions for young children on the autism spectrum, painstakingly integrated through professional discussion and attention to institutional structure. Contributors address the rationale of the therapeutic programmes as well as individual case histories and their theoretical and technical implications, including advances in our understanding of the body image. The book will be essential reading for anyone concerned with autism or interested in understanding human development."

Maria Rhode, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychotherapy, Tavistock Clinic/University of East London, Hon. Associate, British Psychoanalytical Society

About the Author
Tami Pollak is a therapist and clinical supervisor, both in the private and public sector. She teaches in the Psychotherapy Program at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University and in Winnicott center, Israel.



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