Although the psychogenetic hypotheses on child autism have been superseded, psychoanalysis can still reflect on the relational exchange and its sensory aspects in concomitance with the mental development of these patients. Without making generalizations as regards the pathogenesis, but considering the specific features of each autistic child, it may be possible to achieve an integration of those islands of competence that make up these patients' limited personal heritage. Such integration may be reached through the analysis of representational, emotional and relational transformations. The first part of this article describes the case of an autistic child in treatment from the age of four on a four-times-weekly basis who, during puberty, developed severe formal thought disorders together with delusional and hallucinatory formations. The second part develops some post-Jungian theoretical contributions, such as the concept of self as nothingness and the idea of the unsaturated archetype, so as to evaluate the function of some a-priori concepts in support of the analyst's position. These concepts are considered in relation to Bion's model of transformation, and to the formulations on dimensional awareness, especially on the shift from a two-dimensionality to three-dimensionality view, as well as to the rhythm of the object's presence and absence.

This paper offers a contribution towards furthering our understanding of a theme more usually associated with the Freudian tradition, namely the role and function of words as action, particularly in relation to the representational process and its somatic roots. Some reference to neuroscience research will be offered in this respect. It also considers the value of differentiating Empathy from Empathism, as defined by the Italian psychoanalyst Stefano Bolognini who distinguishes informing complementary countertransference from states of over-concordance. Two analytic sessions taken from the intensive analysis of a deeply deprived late-latency child showing violent behaviour are provided with the aim of illustrating the application of these concepts. It is argued that, given the same elaboration of the countertransference and the adequate empathic position on the part of the analyst, the difference in the outcome of the interpretation was made by the specific use of words-in this case the use or not of the personal pronoun-in the two sessions. As the case material is taken from the clinical work of a supervisee, some elements regarding the supervisory situation are also discussed in the paper.

The aim of this paper is to describe some acute responses to the suicide of a parent, through the account of the analytic psychotherapy of a latency child who found the body of his dead father. The acute traumatic responses of the child show that the perceptual apparatus, time and space are subverted, while the functioning of the contact barrier is deeply damaged. The importance of the environment in facilitating the first stages of the mourning process is stressed as well as the pre-traumatic personality structure. Both the Bionian model of preconception and the post-Jungian notion of archetype, revisited in terms of an unsaturated predisposition, are considered from a theoretical point of view. Preconceptions and archetypal dispositions to survive traumatic events are very important to the therapeutic outcome, along with the opportunity to start the treatment as early as possible after the traumatic event. This is particularly relevant in relation to the latency period, in terms of the capacity to contemplate the effects of the drives. The importance of allowing the child to work through all the stages of mourning is also considered, particularly rage, protest and hostile fantasies towards the lost object. The clinical material is structured as a narrative in an attempt to evoke the emotional climate experienced during the sessions as well as the state of mind of the child. The narrative is a secondary elaborated account with condensation and displacement at its core, like in dream work. Events, filtered through the analyst's state of self, are reported by lending the first person to the child in the narrative reconstruction.

This paper explores Bion’s theory of links, L, H, K (Love, Hate and Knowledge) and their minus counterparts, ‐L, ‐H, ‐K, which are not conceivable as simply opposite to or as a lack of L, H, K. Rather, they correspond to a way of experiencing Love, Hatred and Knowledge in terms of absoluteness, and in terms of a radical impossibility of acknowledging loss, relativeness and absence. The theory of links is also examined in its evolution towards the conceptualization of three types of container/contained configurations (commensal, symbiotic and parasitic). These Bionian models are compared and referred to the way Jung articulates the coexistence of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and the paradoxical nature of mental functioning in relation to the individuation process. The images taken from the Rosarium Philosophorum, particularly the Fons Mercurialis, examined by Jung in ‘The psychology of the transference’ (1946), are explored in the paper. Theory is examined with a particular focus on the adolescent mind and its dramatic phenomenology. Two excerpts taken from the analytic work with a mid‐adolescent female patient and a late‐adolescent male patient are presented to describe minus‐Hate as a form of absolute love, and minus‐Love as a form of absolute hatred.

The paper explores the phenomenology of major depression and suicidal ideation in children, offering a brief overview of relevant findings in psychiatry, with particular reference to statistical evidence, and outlining psychoanalytic models, including Jungian as well as the post‐Kleinian and Bionian vertices. Bowlby's seminal contribution to the understanding of mourning processes in relation to Freud's theory is also considered. The case of an eight‐year‐old boy is examined, with particular attention to a series of drawings that the patient produced over the two years of his psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The therapy was interrupted abruptly by his parents.