ABSTRACT
Michel Henry's Phenomenology of Life allows us to understand verbal interpretation with autistic children as an indispensable tool to create the transference relationship in psychoanalytic therapy. According to Henry, the reassuring and comforting principles of Intentionality as donors of sense protect the subject against the other. The interpretation would have the pretension of occupying a constitutive place through the assignment of meaning to the behavior of the child, tending to approach the child through deductive and aprioristic knowledge. Verbal interpretation is discussed as a reassuring and calming principle for the psychoanalyst, since this principle is intentional, and it is a donor of sense. The body of an autistic child may enable the psychoanalyst to experience it as pure phenomenon of affection.
Keywords:
Psychoanalytic therapy; Phenomenology of Life; autism