Sukhareva’s work, he too saw parallels between his patients’ condition and schizophrenia—particularly a tendency toward what Bleuler called “autistic thinking,” defined as self-centered rumination and retreat into fantasy. These children pursued their own goals tenaciously, like the boy determined to collect a thousand matchboxes, but they seemed immune to the expectations of others. “In everything these children follow their own impulses and interests,” he observed, “regardless of the outside world.”
