Autism in France: Psychoanalysis, Packing, Other Travesties

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Anomiel wrote in response to my last message:

Hi. Well, as anyone knows who has read my messages on wp, my major concern is that the view of the cause of autism is slanted way towards nature, and this very lopsided view is greatly adding to human suffering, as once a person locks into this position in his thinking, then the way he is processing data is going to kind of follow from that, so it becomes the basis of his thinking about himself and others and allows much less flexibility. I realize you are aware of this and how I might respond, so I see your post as being intended to open a door.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 051613.php

"Previously, researchers had attempted to use genetic approaches to help explain the biological basis of neuropsychiatric diseases, but genetics can only explain a small percentage of cases....." and "...Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are uniquely human diseases. Though some animal models exist for these diseases, animals cannot experience these diseases as we do, since they lack our language capacities, and the ability to represent feelings and ideas, their own and those of others, across time. These specifically human capabilities are encoded in specifically human neural networks, such as an emotional encoding network, found to be disrupted in mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, and the directed effort network which fails in schizophrenia...."

So, in short, do you think that the experience of the infant and the young child with the mother can play into the development of autism? I do, though I also think these psychoanalysts in France who are engaging in practices such as packing should be stopped. But why are so many people so upset with the idea of the refrigerator mother? Personally I do not like the terminology-- there is something quite wrong with it as a catch phrase, and I do not like the idea of not using a behavioral approach with young children who are autistic, of completely neglecting to do that because of some theory, but it seems to me there is a lot of wrong thinking on both ends. Why only a behavioral approach? That seems very off-base...and what I am seeing on WP is quite of lot of people who are blaming their lack of adjustment on their genes and on other people who are better adjusted (nt's), and to some degree a culture is being built around it. That is a terrible thing, and in my opinion probably as harmful to autistics, and even more harmful than packing in France. I do not know if I have the skills to address this topic and if anyone except maybe you is even interested, and that to me is very sad.

You wrote so much in your message I cannot cover it all, so will address later, but previously you wrote:

I have tried and tried for some time before reading this to find an explanation on the internet or anywhere else. Interesting that there is this whole thread here, and, unless I have missed it, no one except you has questioned what kind of idea is behind the idea of packing. I finally did kind of figure out that it has something to do with brain function, encapsulation, and sort of trying to reset the switch..(This does not mean that it works or that they should be doing it)>

.

I believe that extreme introversion (autism) as the core symptom of a disorder may either be congenital or the result of trauma. I do also see the need of different classificatory classes on disorders with the core symptom of extreme introversion in regards to its treatment. Today it exist different classificatory classes in ICD-10 which also show the clear differences between the disorders. Autism as a result of trauma has social intact skills and the acted impaired social behavior may be treated in this kind of autism. Further does this kind of autism not engage in special interests and so.

The problem lies in acknowledging the two different disorders which share so many traits that ICD-10 was in need of making an own section to help the psychiatrists see the difference. Today some country has a low ratio of people born with autism and a high ratio of people having autism as a result of trauma, where other countries have a high ratio of people born with autism and a low ratio of people having autism as a result of trauma. These differences are connected to the confusion of the differences between the two disorders.

The use of the term autism by Bettelheim had its consequences; research on emotional abuse was neglected for around 30 years. The consequences of a mother calling his son an as*hole and telling him that he was a result of an accident, the consequences of a mother not being there when the daugther is in need of comfort and love, the consequences of treating one's kid with physical violence or death if it does not do what is asked, or the consequences when kids are encouraged to drink alcohol, deal drugs or shoplifting, are a few of the consequences which research neglected for a long time. All this kinds of behavior happens, and although refrigator mother is a rather old-fashioned words, research into it may give valueable information in a treatment situation of trauma. To be upset about that word is to show a lack of understanding for the historical use of the term autism and the existence of emotional abuse.

To Chris, my understanding is that the kind of trauma implicated by psychoanalysts in non-genetic forms of autism most probably is experienced by infants. I think the refrigerator mother is referring to a parenting style in that the mother is frozen off and cannot be intimate with and accepting of the child. The child may simply experience body tension, or maybe neglect---not being held intimately when fed, and also, such a child may has a certain kind of brain and/or is super sensitive, so because of these genetic factors may be more predisposed to respond to this kind of situation by encapsulating (himself within) different aspects of his own sensory experience, such as touch, to close himself off into a shell, away from the pain of being rejected, but it is mainly at a preverbal stage of development. To remember it would be possible, but very painful, almost unendurable. Basically the encapsulation probably serves as a protective device while at the same time representing to the child the mother the child is protecting itself from being hurt by (hurt because the mother is on some level rejecting it), so that is kind of a sickening and very terrible double bind...

Re the kind of trauma you mention---I think that would be more likely to result in various personality disorders.

I do not recall if I read it on this thread or on the open internet or both, but the reason many people resent the theory that the refrigerator mother is the cause is that then, especially in France, they do not take a behavioral approach at an early age, and the autistic child misses a window of opportunity to develop social skills,,,,a lot of this does have to do with ignorance or at least lopsided thinking on the part of French psychoanalysts, and these folks are f---ing rich because of their practices, so I can see why parents would get mad, if if the psychoanalysts are kind of right. But to really understand the phenomena of packing better I think it would be necessary to look at the actual French culture. They are sort of in a kind of autistic envelope themselves:-)

My understanding of refrigator mother is based upon the books of Bettelheim (The empty fortress, truants from life and love is not enough). It involve kids in different ages with different developments in life, but with the common of being emotionally abused. I do not believe those kids necessary has any more special brains or features, and the defence mechanisms of dissociation and autistic thinking is normal primitive defence mechanisms in all humans who experience serious trauma. Kids who experience serious trauma many times from an early age thought would have much higher risk than any others to develop an attachment disorder and later a personality disorder; which is seen as including attachment disorders as possible reasons.




You might be some right about this (I do not know France to its depth, only a few of the old french psychoanalysts who actively used the term autism and founded 'L'Evolution psychiatrique' which still exist by journal) , thought my experience is that many also reject the refrigator mother theory because they are afraid that they should be seen as bad and abusing parents. The most parents who has an autistic child are loving parents who never would abuse their kids, but the existence of similar symptoms in kids which has been abused make the use of autism as a term something which can easily be misunderstood and be very unfortunate.

Thanks for your insightful response-- but re I agree with your point about autistic thinking being a normal primitive defense mechanism, but also someone writing on this thread has brought up the question about what trauma actually is, and I think this is a very important to consider, plus there is a question about how genetic factors play into such a developmental disorder, and it is agreed by most if not all learning specialists that generally genetics does in some way play into it.

Re your comment above about France, for those who like to ponder, here is something to perhaps think about----the use of the term "refrigerator mother" in itself indicates to me a form of autism in the thinking of the kind of people who used that type of phraseology. Now if this appears to be a perplexing comment, what am I attempting to say here? Also, the way you use the term "loving parents" is a tad problematic, as it is really up for question what a loving parent is, and different people have different definitions of how a loving parent would actually treat his child. A parent may feel that he is loving, and yet, by the definition of loving by someone else, this parent may not be at all loving, but even malicious, though perhaps not consciously so...and also, yes,most people would agree on a certain definition of serious trauma as a certain degree of physical and emotional abuse, but an infant, for instance, might have a different kind of take on this.....

To those I have been interacting with on other threads and with whom some kind of bond has been formed, I have not had time to participate recently but I am thinking about you with affection and eventually will get back to those threads..Also, it takes a while, at least for me, to comprehensively digest any topic where ideas are being inquired into, as I have to kind of mull it over for a while and then test it out in my own life, and that generally does not happen overnight.

You have to realize that I'm wary of discussing nurture at all - as for a long time those that even mentioned nurture spoke of that in exclusion to nature. Now I suspect that as we are so sensitive upbringing might play an even bigger role for us than other disorders, but I don't know how yet.
The "intense-world theory of autism" say it is our extreme sensory processing that is the likely culprit of our "autistic withdrawal". That is a form of nurture in a way... The only radical thing about that theory is that it claims that is the only reason (not even cause) for autism, and as such is wrong. But as our sensory processing is so extreme it is sometimes painful, maybe that pain also is a form of trauma? We'll have to stop measuring trauma after what hurts NTs.
I personally do not blame anyone or anything for me being autistic. I do not especially like the way any neurodiverse are treated however.
NTs are not well-adjusted. Society is made for them from the start - there is nothing to adjust from. Though I guess it is just semantics...
And re:packing - even though it's morally wrong, I had to know what they think they are doing before I can properly refute it, and I was curious. Thank you for giving me the answer.

Anomiel wrote;

Actually there is one theory I read a couple of weeks ago from the psychoanalytic journal I found on autism, which theory I thought you would find find very interesting but did not have time yet to write about it, so briefly, from what I can recall: The theory is that perhaps because of some kind of sensory deficit, such as poor vision or hearing, a young child misses various cues and so kind of begins to make up his own story (version of reality) to account for that, and some of the input is kind of off-base due to missed cues, so his perception is to some degree out of synch with the perception of other people, and he kind of builds on his own story about the world, as does everyone, but his story contains some major discrepancy factors and as the story develops it makes him further and further apart from other people, and then he retreats (because no one understands his story:-) Very sad and touching....this is speaking of a young child here, and the way he may become isolated and eventually encapsulated into his own little reality.. I only read it once and am recounting it as I remember. So this would not be an object relations theory, but both theories could play into each other in terms of an explanation.

On a different note, I spent quite a long time yesterday studying some comments from the movie "the Wall," and will eventually try to write about the French approach to autism. Re packing---they perhaps had some success with that kind of approach, or at least think they did. This does not mean it is ultimately that effective or that they should do it,.but it is questionable if the whole approach of psychoanalysis to autism should be thrown out because of this any more than the Bible which contains some of the greatest spiritual writing of humanity should be thrown out because some wacko fundamentalists take allegorical material literally or because some of the mores of the culture that comes from are inhumane and/or archaic.

That's very fascinating, and new to me. Thanks for sharing.
Autistics often have very sharp senses - in auditory processing disorder the problems are with the understanding of (some) sounds, most commonly speech. Though that might give the same result.
I've read some about visual hallucinations caused by sight-problems - the brain doesn't get enough visual input so it starts creating some by itself. I wonder if extreme boredom of other senses can do the same - maybe each of us have our own limit where that happens? That is of course different than the story of misunderstandings, though it's similar.
Here's a video of the paranoia that can come from missing too many cues:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1izup2uX3U[/youtube]

You've said before that France is in their own autistic enclosure, so is The Wall like an autistic person or France? It is true they are not that keen on integration with the rest of Europe (or the world). I suspect possible packing-induced "improvements" have only happened in people that would do anything to get away from that - even pretend that they are "cured".
I dislike organized religion, but I don't care if someone wants to read the Bible - though I like the quotes attributed to Buddha better myself.

Hi Anomiel. Will reply to the rest of your message later, but this sort of grabbed my attention:

Ha ha...you put so much in so little:-) Well I think the way the brain works is to make these encapsulations around different conceptual sets or frameworks, be they simple or complex---has to do with left brain and right brain...I think it is natural to do it, but in a particular person such as an autistic child or a group of psychoanalysts it can go overboard..... I did not see the film, The Wall, but would sure like to....it seems from what I have read that the objection by the psychoanalysts is that their comments were edited so as to present a point of view that slants and distorts their actual perspective. I have no idea if this is true, but in general it is what people do. Now if the aim of doing so is to stop something that is perceived as causing human suffering and so is harmful and bad and which should be stopped, things can still get out of shape and contexts distorted, ultimately not for the greater good. Of course people want to stop particular instances of suffering, and they should, but I do suggest to not get eaten by the particulars.Much more on this later.

Just realized that you were describing anomie too in your earlier post Though it is formed by differences between self and current society, not misunderstanding.
Yes, I agree, as the idiom goes we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Though packing might reflect more on the view of autism in France, than on all psychoanalysis.
Concerning the commentary - people can either edit for both good and bad reasons. Either to clarify, and then if the result wasn't true to their intention then they failed to communicate it properly, or they are lying because it makes them look bad. Or it can be edited for entertainment or more nefarious purposes, which is common in media.

Yes, everybody, according to the circumstances that come up, is always editing, and different people have different ideas about what is good or bad. So people make these little worlds and enclose themselves into them, and this is a form of encapsulation that I would say is in some way akin to autism. In short there needs to be some kind of model that does not create large discrepancies, and then no one will feel cut off or end up being suicidal. Does this make sense? And it all comes back to brain function and the integration of one large bite (a combination of sets into an integral frame) with individual smaller pieces of information. I am not good at this kind of language, so I hope you will be able to the gist.

Re the French culture and how this all relates to 'post' industrial revolution concept of anomie, this is kind of an esoteric topic which I could really get into, though I do not know if anyone but you would be interested....maybe some psycho analysts.who are probably following this thread:-)...I think it would be good if the discussion could be integrated into the development of an approach which is mentally transformational. French could be those guys in France who are practicing packing and other travesties, or it could also mean us. Similarly packing could mean what those guys are doing in France, but it could also mean what we are doing in relationships because it is convenient and/or because we do not understand, the key point here being that in terms of sorting and grading it can become quite difficult when one thing means two things, and yet this is how the world works in terms of making representations, as at the switch point, one 'thing' can and generally does represent two different and distinct things, and/or even kind of conduct in both directions, which leads us back to the theory of object relations.....

Some news from France : in early May (at last), the French minister for the disabled and struggle against exclusion, Marie-Arlette Carlotti, presented a new plan for autism. Not surprisingly when one knows about politics, it's far from perfect and still clearly insufficient (only 205 millions of euros, for instance, and it has a slow start), but it stands for early diagnosis, behavioral methods, new knowledge, research and findings.

Because the minister also said that only "methods that work" should be given credits, the plan attracted the ire of psychoanalysts from all over the country, who now ask for its removal, write to the President, and so on. They think the methods are too commercial in nature, not scientific enough, and they are against the Health Authority (who they think works for the State and commercial interests). And they argue for a "plurality of approaches", yet in practice favor mainly psychoanalytical/psychodynamic methods or the status quo. They also consider autistic people to be ill, mad or suffering.

It's very strange, a little paradoxical. I don't really understand their logic.

Thanks for posting this..Do not have much time now, but here is something to perhaps chew on. To you or anyone, including myself-- because there is rather oddly so little on the internet regarding their point of view, at least in the English language,---how important is it to understand the logic behind it? Would I make a dedicated focus out of a passion to try to understand? How could doing this help me in my own life? Will it help people who are autistic? How interesting is this question to me? If my time is very limited, would I give up watching my favorite tv show (or whatever:-) to do an in depth search on the internet regarding this subject in order to try to understand?

To me, it does not apply to fictional things. But I like when people whom I talk to express consistent thoughts and ideas. It's clearly not the case here.

So in a way, trying to understand their logic is not that important, and making it a dedicated focus would be a waste of time (especially if they're of the "Lacanian" brand - Lacanian thought is weird and disturbing enough for French NTs, but can be downright incomprehensible or even insulting for non-French Aspies, since it's partly based on French language puns and a whole lot of non-rigorous metaphors). It won't help you in your own life, nor help people who are autistic.

Hi Anty. Thanks for your very articulate response which I much appreciate. You may not want to get involved dialoging with me as in some sense we are from two different worlds....first I see that you are 22, soon to be 23, so your mind is still probably very alive and fresh...whereas I am an older person over seventy and I have been fresh-minded, then eventually in many ways cut off and jaded, and now much more sensitive and unjaded. In any case, the way I use language and have with conscious effort deliberately learned to use speech is that many things I am speaking of do not only refer to one thing alone, but there may also be another level of communication where one thing also means something else.

I would like to once more make it clear that for many reasons I am basically anti-therapy, and this includes the use of psychology in the United States, but, as I have written, I think in some circumstances, with the right person,therapy could be quite helpful (but how to find the right person???), and also I do not believe it is productive to throw the baby (meaning all of the ideas of psychology) out with the bathwater (the bathwater being the cultish, highly subjective, presumptuous, money-grubbing, authoritarian and elitist practice which exists all over the world and not just in France, so I think this kind of travesty is universal, and not just in psycho (whacko) therapy, as it starts in the thinking of human beings.

Secondly, I am no fan of the work of Lacan or even of Freudian psychology, which is kind of based on energy flow and exchange (drive theory), but am more interested in object relations theory in respect to how material ends up being framed based on both genetics and environment and how it can possibly be reframed so as to lead to great mental clarity by an understanding of the subject-object relationship, the subject being oneself (meaning ones mind, ones thinking and one sense of self) and the object being whatever is being looked at, so the object of knowledge, and the subsequent integration into intelligent individuality as expressed by an action.

Now people have done something regarding packing in France.. They have to some degree stopped a travesty, and that is good, but there is always a travesty and sometimes ones own thinking can be interconnected with travesty in general, and understanding how this works can not only change ones mind but can also be world changing, so I think it is possible for the participation on this thread to provide a different dimension that is generative of a greater intelligence and also compassion.

Thirdly, and this may be a little bit of a difficult topic--regarding French culture, I do not speak French and have never been to France, but who is to say exactly how the understanding of a particular culture originates? A person can be from a certain culture and deeply immersed in it, and perhaps not really understand how it works but rather be just flowing with it, so, yes, understanding it on that level, but there is no contrast, so the view is still from one side. When some French consider the culture of the United States degenerative (my word), is there a rationale behind this that makes any kind of sense? Though you may not want to know, I do want to know, and sometimes an understanding is not complete until it is shared with someone else, so spoken....

This is just an introduction to the response I would like to give to your message and will if I can find the time. I realize you may not find it productive to communicate with me, but if you do write back it would be a pleasure. I am basically in accordance with the point of view you have presented, but for me there is possibly another dimension that may be worthwhile to explore..

Here's a petition (in French) to support the current French plan for autism against the attacks of psychoanalysts : https://www.change.org/fr/p%C3%A9tition ... an-autisme