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The impossibility of future thinking  is intrinsic to the way of life of the autistic children we assist. It always seems as if nothing previously experienced can be re-experienced or anticipated. The autistic child seems to grasp his environment in the same way as a shadow, to adhere as closely as possible to it through his senses, and, so doing, abolish any spatial or temporal distance. From a therapeutic point of view, we have for the first time, chosen the body’s own shadow as a mediator in the framework of autism. Indeed, even though it is a two-dimensional image of the body, the shadow also points out the contours of the world upon which it is projected. In this way, it seems to offer perspectives for release and constitutes an intermediate space facilitating acceptance of the integration of a first discrepancy, a necessary condition for achieving future thinking. By way of a clinical study, we describe this initial experience.