In this paper I distinguish between human beings as organisms that require food, drink and shelter for survival and the making of a relationship not to serve this need of the organism but for its own sake.
I examine the way in which autosensuousness, as Frances Tustin has explained it, smothers the capacity to make a relationship. I also examine how the revision of Tustin’s theory towards the end of her life can be extended to encompass the deficiency in relating which is the core of autism.
