PETER AND JESSICA HOBSON
Tavistock Clinic and Institute of Child Health, University College, London, UK

The development of self/other-awareness: A perspective from autism.

How far, and in which respects, does self-awareness entail awareness of other selves? What are the mechanisms by which pre-reflective awareness of selfother relations is achieved? These are among the questions we are addressing from the perspective of developmental psychopathology, and specifically through studies of early childhood autism. We shall present evidence that there are dissociable components to self-awareness. We argue that distinctively human forms of self-awareness depend upon intersubjective relations structured by the propensity to identify with the attitudes of others. This propensity has profound implications for a young child's experience (and in due course, understanding) of self and others as persons with minds.

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