Autism: A Neurological Disorder of Early Brain Development.
Roberto Tuchman and Isabelle Rapin (Eds.). 2006. London, England: Mac
Keith Press for the International Child Neurology Association, 354 pp.,
$115.00/£65.00.
Historically, the need or drive to connect to other humans is absent
from the instincts that Freud considered fundamental to all humans, and
from the work of Charles Darwin (1965), who
heavily influenced Freud. Despite the fact that Darwin's last major
publication focused on the expression of emotion in humans and animals,
neither major theorist, both critical to the development of psychology,
gave a place in their theories to the desire to connect to others. Yet new
research consistently points to a desire for social connection in all of
us and in our closest relatives on the evolutionary chain. When social
relatedness is impaired, the results are devastating, and nowhere is this
devastation more apparent than in a child with autism, the subject of this
multi-authored volume.