Encounters with Autistic States: A Memorial Tribute to Frances Tustin

This remarkable tribute consists of a collection of invaluable papers on subjects close to Tustin's heart that touch on questions at the very core of the human experience. Those who know her work will welcome the opportunity to deepen their understanding of her seminal contributions to psychoanalysis on such issues as psychic autism, hopelessness, despair, awe, ecstasy, and isolation. For those unfamiliar with the thinking of Frances Tustin on regressed and primitive mental states, the book constitutes a found treasure.
How apt that Tustin, who devoted her life to investigating the vicissitudes of aloneness, should here stand surrounded by her loving colleagues and students. Ted and Judith Mitrani deserve our gratitude for having arranged this instructive and moving assembly.
Frances Tustin was a phenomenon in the field of psychoanalytical psychotherapeutic research with children, and particularly with autistic children. Her independence from organized schools and their prescribed thinking made her an observer of peculiar freedom and therapeutic effectiveness. I appreciate what the editors have done to establish Frances Tustin's position in our history.
Tustin influenced not only those interested in the specific problems of autistic states but also those who shared an intuition that autism could play the role of a new paradigm for the study of the mind. Yet Tustin's thinking did not achieve a recognition comparable to that of her masters and inspirators-Winnicott and Bion. This book corrects that unjust fate. The contributors widen the scope of her work, witnessing its richness, fecundity, and depth, and establishing connections with other contemporary conceptions. Never was a tribute so sincere, so justified, and so thoughtful.
The contributors of Frances Tustin constitute perhaps the most significant step forward in our understanding of primitive mental states since the work of Klein, Bion, and Winnicott. This truly superb collection of clinically alive papers by twenty-one notable analytic thinkers from around the globe is certain to become a classic.