L'autiste et sa voix

Differential diagnosis on the autism spectrum: Theorizing an “Ordinary Autism”

“…A parallel could be drawn between this model and dominant psychiatric nosographies; we might also adopt a common language that would add value to all models and lend them the depth of psychoanalysis's theorizations. This structural model of autism was born out of the theoretical renaissance, in a context of epistemic break [172,173], marked by a new theoretical position staked out within the very discipline of psychoanalysis [161] and a break with earlier positions, in particular regarding the distinction between autism and psychosis. Thus, to expand upon the analogy, just as ordinary psychosis imposed itself as a veritable theoretical necessity in response to a contemporaneous clinical reality, in a similar context, ordinary autism seems to us to respond to the same urgent need for markers, and this, in several ways.…”

“…Psychoanalysis, too, must be able to reinvent itself, perhaps with regards to its own corpus [161,173]. Psychoanalysis must push itself to transcend its classical models and to move towards an understanding of these news ways of being a "subject" -for example, with the idea of a new autistic subjective mode [178] --while being in dialogue with and integrating the knowledge from and the progress made in other disciplines [179].…”

“…Maleval [74,[155][156][157]160] constructs a resolutely structural model using Lacan's teaching as well as a critical review of clinical research on autism; his model also takes into account recent writings by autistic people [161]. His principal aim is to grasp an essential quality of autism that exists despite its clinical heterogeneity -in other words, to grasp the structural psychic specificities that are found in Kanner's "version" of autism, in Asperger's, and all along the autism spectrum.…”

“…Thus recognizing an ordinary autistic subject, regulated on the basis of an autistic structure, implies taking a position in the representation that we have of the autistic subject, and orients the accompaniment and the therapeutic treatments that can be proposed. The latter will be less focused on highly visible and debilitating autistic symptoms (these are not likely to be present), but, instead, will involve the work of supporting the subject while they come to grips with their difference, supporting them through the subjective processes they put in place to deal with their dynamic dissatisfaction, and accompanying their insertion in the social world [74,161]. Thus, the therapeutic posture is one that remains in contact with the subject, with her/his knowledge and the skills that s/he has developed to create a personal being-in-the-world.…”

The autistic pseudosignifier: Imaginary dialectization of signs in the clinic of autism

“…In a similar vein, I argue that the fundamental etiological determinant of autism is a particular reaction to the alienation in language which results in the rejection of the domain of signifiers (Lefort & Lefort, 2003, pp. 14, 27, 52-56;Maleval, 2009Maleval, , pp. 81-90, 2019).…”