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is known as a pioneer in the elaboration of the psychoanalytic concept of the skin. Bick theorizes that the "primal skin function" is fundamental in the early formation and integration of the human psyche and suggests that it should determine most interpretations of psychopathology. This article investigates the particular association of disturbances in the skin function with the onset of autism. A new approach to the skin function is put in motion using terms borrowed from the mathematical field of topology developed by Bernard Burgoyne. Through this interpretation, autism is postulated as originating in disturbances in a particular modality of the skin function that cause psychic representations to operate according to a mode of separation characterizing specific topological spaces. This mathematical perspective explains the complexity and diversity of autistic symptoms in terms of linguistic functionality. Finally, the skin is put forward as a modality of the Freudian drive (Trieb)-the dermic drive-and the hypothesis of the psychic foreclosure of its rim is offered as a defining characteristic of the autistic psychic structure.

The mirror stage is one of Jacques Lacan’s most well-received metapsychological models in the English-speaking world. In its many renditions Lacan elucidates the different forms of identification that lead to the construction of the Freudian ego. This article utilizes Lacan’s mirror stage to provide a novel perspective on autistic embodiment. It develops an integrative model that accounts for the progression of four distinct forms of autistic identification in the mirror stage; these forms provide the basis for the development of four different clinical trajectories in the treatment of autism. This model is posed as an alternative to the clinical and diagnostic framework associated with the autistic spectrum disorder.

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