By Robin Holloway (Canada)
The DSM-5 (2013) lumps together all autism-related disorders, including Asperger’s, under the heading, “Autism Spectrum Disorder.” This book argues that this lumping together is unhelpful for clinicians. Instead, finer diagnostic distinctions are helpful to clinicians who treat children with Asperger’s. The book spells out in detail the psychodynamics the author has repeatedly discovered in all Asperger’s children, adolescents, and adults. There are suggestions about central factors in the etiology of Asperger’s Disorder, centered on the psychological outcome of an inborn sensory hypersensitivity. There is a section suggesting how Asperger’s can be adequately diagnosed from “the outside” (using external descriptive features) and more importantly from “the inside” (based on internal psychodynamic processes). Finally, there is a section outlining psychodynamic treatment approaches to Asperger’s children, based on their psychodynamics and on which type of Asperger’s is present.
There are numerous case illustrations to help the reader appreciate the central psychodynamics that are regularly observed in Asperger’s children, namely splitting of the self into victim and bully aspects, and projective identification into remote objects. On the basis of their psychodynamics, and especially which aspect of the split self is predominant, three different types of Asperger’s are outlined, each requiring different treatment approaches. The author goes on to describe an ongoing experiment treating Asperger’s children that is being conducted in Toronto with several psychoanalytic therapists cooperating, the treatment approach being anchored in the underlying psychological functioning of these children. An understanding of the psychodynamics of these children is used to ground both diagnosis and treatment.
Contents include:
– The psychodynamics of Asperger’s children
– Theorizing about the etiology of Asperger’s
– The diagnosis of Asperger’s children
– Treatment approaches to Asperger’s children
Review:
“This is a very important book. It addresses all of the big issues concerning the treatment, diagnosis, and etiology of these children’s condition, and it does so with great and encyclopedic scholarship, profundity, and clinical wisdom. It is brilliant, but it is also a fascinating read.”
–Anne Alvarez, PhD, MACP, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist;
retired co-chair, Autism Service, Tavistock Clinic, London
About the Author:
Robin Holloway, PhD, CPsych, provides psychoanalytic psychotherapy to children and adolescents. He is a graduate of CICAPP (The Canadian Institute for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy) where he is a supervisor and teacher. He worked in a public hospital and participated in weekly diagnostic intake meetings for children with autism spectrum disorders. He is in private practice at The Willow Centre in Toronto, where he has continued to treat high-functioning autistic children and those with Asperger’s disorder.
Robin Holloway, PhD, CPsych
The Willow Centre,45 Sheppard Avenue East, Suite 202,
Toronto, Ontario,
M2N 5W9 Canada
Email Robin Holloway