[A mentalization-based perspective on childhood autism treatment]. / Perspective de prise en charge d'enfants atteints de troubles du spectre autistique par psychothérapie inspirée des thérapies basées sur la mentalisation.

Mentalization is a process by which a subject makes sense of both his own mental representations and of those around him. Disturbances in the mentalization process are found in several psychiatric disorders, notably borderline personality disorders for which mentalization-based treatments (MBT) have been developed and evaluated. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) display a theory of mind impairments, which corresponds to disturbances in the mentalization process. Although no MBT protocol for patients with ASD has been described in the literature, such treatment appears promising to improve theory of mind and functional outcome of these children. In this paper, we propose to discuss the theoretical ground of MBT therapeutic effect in children with ASD without intellectual disabilities and to describe a clinical protocol to test this perspective.

Methaemoglobinaemia due to amyl nitrite inhalation: a case report.

Methaemoglobinaemia is a potential toxic effect of aliphatic nitrites which are increasingly abused by male homosexuals and drug addicts because of marked vasodilating properties ('poppers'). In most instances, severe complications were described following the ingestion of large quantities of amyl, butyl or isobutyl nitrites. A deficiency in NADH-dependent haemoglobin reductase in some patients has been noted. This is the first report of symptomatic methaemoglobinaemia following the inhalation of amyl nitrite.