Symposium: Autistic states and nameless fear in the analysis of adult patients

Friday, 9 January and Saturday, 10 January 2026; 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. each day

Nameless Grief in Autistic States
Joshua Durban, Los Angeles

One of the striking autistic features is the way the individual handles primary traumatic losses and incompatibilities. While there has been a lot of writing on autistic experience of loss, which is experienced mainly as bodily and sensorial, not much has been written about autistic grief and mourning. In my presentation I shall examine the characteristics of autistic mourning, mainly as a nameless grief associated with catastrophic change. I shall highlight these characteristics, with regards to technique, through clinical material taken from the analyses of a three-year old autistic boy who has lost his mother, and of an adult patient who has lost his twin brother.

Joshua Durban is training and supervising child and adult psychoanalyst at the Israeli Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Jerusalem (IPA) where he also teaches. He is a member of the Psychoanalytic Center of California, Los Angeles, training and supervising analyst at the PCC and the clinical director of VAC-Vista Del Mar Autism Center, LA, which provides psychoanalytic treatment for infants, children, adolescents, young adults and their families.

On the Theory and Technique of Nameless States
Bernd Nissen, Berlin

An attempt is made to circle nameless states in theoretical and therapeutic terms. Nameless state is used as a generic term to describe encapsulated and predetermined phenomena that resemble Tustin’s encapsulated and confusingly entangled type of autism. In the first case, the experience of non-existence, in which the expectation of an understanding object has disappeared, is encapsulated by turning away from reality and using autistoid mechanisms. The expectation of an object dies away, self-object differentiation remains undeveloped in this area, and reality testing atrophies. The event thus appears to be non-existent, but autistoid manoeuvres must ensure that perceiving of the world is avoided. In the second case, contact with reality is avoided through the self-generation of stimuli and arousal. Somatosensory sensations, impressions and arousal are redefined as self-generated, disturbing stimuli that undermine self-generation are eliminated or avoided, and pleasurable stimuli are generated and sought after in an almost addictive manner. The distinction between outside and inside becomes blurred, the independence of the object is not recognized, and the object becomes a pleasurable or unpleasant stimulus. Treatment-related consequences are derived.

Bernd Nissen studied psychology and philosophy, completing his behavioral therapy training shortly after graduating. He was head of a big social psychiatric association and worked for 15 years in social psychiatry with children/ adolescents and adults. During this time, he started his psychoanalytic training and got his PhD in systems theory. His first training case was a patient suffering from a breakdown, followed by two cases of severe hypochondria. He understood severe hypochondria as an autistoid disorder and began to study nameless states in depth. He is co-editor of the Yearbook of Psychoanalysis and has published many journal articles and books. His works are available in eight languages.

Website: Münchner Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Psychoanalyse e.V. (MAP)
Registrierung: In addition to registering via the website, you can also register by email at tagung@psychoanalyse-map.de, providing your contact details (name, address and email address for the invoice). 
Ort: Online event on Zoom
Candidates as well as practising therapists
Kosten: 110.00 Euro, 90.- für Teilnehmer*innen des IPAK