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dominated by sensations, which constitutes the core of the Self, associated with a relatively undifferentiated auto-sensuality. She describes that at this stage, the child’s body and its sensations lay the foundations for the constitution of a bodily self, the basis for the subsequent development of identity. In this phase the objects of external reality, including the mother, are incorporated in the form of sensation-objects belonging to the body, precursors of the next relationship of the newborn with not-me objects, experienced as separate from the body to which the child must adapt. Tustin also stresses that the child must have first developed a sense of self that is distinct and separate from others in order to be able to develop social awareness of others. The way in which the newborn develops this type of awareness is essential for the acquisition of the sense of individual identity. The sensuality of the newborn in the state of normal primary autism is combined with the adaptability of the mother coming from her maternal preoccupation and protecting her child from the experiences of the “non-self”, in a sort of “post-natal womb”. Tustin theorizes an auto-sensual construct to describe the way the child experiences the mother as part of his body. The capacities that the newborn acquires at this stage, through the “sensation-objects”, come into play in the subsequent use of objects recognized as non-self. The acquisition of these capacities supports the child in the adaptations necessary to confront the external reality separate from the Self. Tustin then proposed a clinical classification of pathological autism based on the defense mechanisms that the child puts in place to protect himself from failures in the elaboration of separation of the Self from the non-Self. In ‘encapsulated’ children psychological development is blocked, the “bodily Self” maintains a split from sensations and the non-self is encapsulated in the self. Such children’ maintain a fusional condition through the splitting-off of their own sensations and through including the “non self” (sensations deriving from the other’s body, or the other’s gestures, actions, emotions etc) in their own Self. These children cling to hard objects that are a source of cold and metallic sensations; these sensations help the child to build a somato- psychic representation of the shell in which they are encapsulated. In ‘confused’ children, on the contrary, the Self is fragmented and confused with non- self and the psychological development is grossly disorganized. The non-Self is engulfed into the self and enclosed in it by means of exciting bodily sensations. In both encapsulated and confused children the central core consists in the attempt to maintain a fusional condition between the Self and the non Self. Overall, the encapsulated child effects a kind of splitting-off/ alienation from the sensations of his own body; the confusing/confused child is as if swallowed by his bodily sensations. According to Renata Gaddini (1977, 2004), the word ‘self’ is used within a maturational context based on a developmental theory. In this context, the ‘self’ is the outcome of the infant’s total bodily experience in the first months of life. These are sensations which, in the course of growing, are gradually elaborated in a process of mentalization. The longitudinal studies on the development of children have shown that in the process of growing the child
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