The Empty Fortress

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Laurie, Marcia, and Joey, the little "mechanical" boy: three autistic children trapped in their empty fortress, frozen in their mutism and fantastical world. Three children among others who are deemed incurable, with whom Bruno Bettelheim and his team attempted to communicate - we will see at what cost and through what challenges. This is less the story of individual cases than that of a methodical adventure: the patient and passionate search for a connection, where the significance of what is too quickly called regression seems to forever prevent it. Surrounding these three poignant observations illustrated with drawings and photographs, there is a critical analysis of psychiatric literature on childhood autism, an exposition of the author's theoretical views on the constitution of the "Self," and a discussion of the myth of wild children.