Autism in France: Psychoanalysis, Packing, Other Travesties

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It was really nice, although they're still very confused between HFA and asperger's, but still i really liked the tone of the movie, very anti psychoanalysis. Loved this !

good documentary. I agree with you ediself, Asperger can be more subtle than that.

Oh... I just realized I did exactly like in the film in a recent job interview. They were asking why I chose their company, I answered that they contacted me first according to my CV (which is true, I did not apply to them at all) and that anyway I did not know how to say that "I want your company" and that anyway I had no idea what I would do in their company because I could not have enough information (which is true in IT).

That was true, but the interviewer made a sad face, like she was crying. Finally, she agreed that I went to the technical interview in the afternoon, but maybe it was only because I came from very far (500 km).

I'm not sure if that's the reason, but I just received an e-mail that "even if I was interesting, they had no opportunity for me now, but surely they will contact me later". I'm not convinced at all. What do you think ?

I've recently trained as a psychotherapist and Marie de Hennezel writes some of the most beautiful books I've read. Still, there have been occasions when I've been shocked by the implications of her adherence to Freudian doctrine.

Modern psychodynamic writers seem to bend over backwards to apologise for Kanner et al. Their apologies do tend, however, to be of the "he was misrepresented or never really meant to say that" variety. I don't think he was misrepresented.

Psychoanalysis inflicted a great deal of misery on supposed "refrigerator" mothers. It's one of psychotherapy's darkest episodes.

Paul

Don't you mean Bettelheim, rather ?

Hello

I think Bettelheim took the same line but that Kanner invented the theory. I recall reading Bettelheim's claim that being autistic was akin to being a victim of the death camps - only that death camp inmates were better off because they'd had the chance to develop a personality... Shocking stuff.

I'll have to look it up now. I could be wrong. Well spotted if so...

Paul

ed. This is from Wikipedia (not always the best source, I know.)

"Although Kanner was instrumental in framing the refrigerator mother theory, it was Bettelheim who facilitated its widespread acceptance by the public and the medical establishment cognoscenti in the 1950s and 1960s."

So, we could both claim to be right.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX1XjYNtHkY&feature=share&ytsession=9yBNzG_Q7QaVBhYnyJkWIwzVYYNCEu9RqsmQDu5HuLmHHiFh3E780fJ5uv_bO1dBJW8ZmTEFn4puGYzbBYfDV9RmNDPx-Wu7De-oN13WNNiMtCtn7IM_fVCydYv7OxgkBVeQ8M2dgouX0uojQwdrTR7JDA0ZL7480QAAGU7AQgdvt5HT2AaTp9zvHXjQGV21iN_3sKzqkyXYCU7_vO6UVGg8OKrmsyuft0Bqu9f1oZEg17HwTSygvfTjE2UC5onX7qtitsKNjw1jMBHU9tPjYn6DzcoVvLTEer_0WfeJWlE[/youtube]

my good friend rosie explaining the situation how she sees it. Very well put in my opinion and a good awareness video!

oh and btw: naked parents for autism for the win!! ! (most of those guys are secret aspies, some are diagnosed though because they're fearless). I wussed out of the calendar but i can still help promote it

Trying to show the world how , after raising a child with autism in france, nothing is scary anymore, not even posing naked.

http://blogs.lexpress.fr/the-autist/201 ... alendrier/

I do not see so much of a problem that the word autism is linked with "refrigator mothers"; it has a valid historical foundation. But the problem is when the specifical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders are linked with "refrigator mothers", since this has none historical foundation. The etymology of the word autism can't be changed and must still be seen as Eugene Bleuler's transformation of Sigmund Freud's term autoerotism. In this case it is fully valid to use both in understanding of what today is called attachment disorders and as a description of a schizophrenic symptom as well as the most common use in autism spectrum disorders.

Bruno Bettelheim's work is so not to be dismissed, but to be understood as what it was; a description of kids who indicated autism in Bleuler's definition as a core symptom and not kids with a specifical autism spectrum disorder. Compared with today's understanding of attachment disorders the work of Bettelheim does not look alien, and it even looks useful. And both with the similarities between autism spectrum disorders and attachment disorders which today pose a problem in the differential diagnosis of those disorders, and the fact that one of the defence mechanisms often involved in attachment disorders is termed 'autistic thinking', it is understandable that the concepts of autism may have been mixed up and the result have been a 'war' between the use of a term rather than seeking the value of the diverse knowledge.

'Refrigator mothers' exist as well as much as congenital autism spectrum disoders exist. The results of a 'Refrigator mother' (as well as a 'Refrigator father') on a kid and the result of the congenital disorder of autism may both come to expression with very similar traits; both fitting the Bleuler's term autism. Of that reason it is important to be aware that different causes may result in similar symptoms. Without this awareness situations like the french psychoanalysts who threat all autistics in light of refrigator mothers instead of doing a very important differential diagnosis first may be the result. Or it may happen the other way, all kind of autismlike symptoms are being treated as congenital autism which both may contribute to a statistical rise and a weaker diagnosis. Before the diagnosis of serial murders often seemed to be some kind of attachment disorder, today it seem to more often be autism spectrum disorder. This change in diagnostic practice pose the question if it may also have something with the understanding of the term autism to do.

The etymology of autism is further complicated in cases where there both exist a congenital autism spectrum disorder and an attachment disorder; each may mask its other and end up with a treatment of only one of them when the other or both may be in need of treatment.

Well, that is my view on the case.

Bruno Bettelheim was a crook and a liar, furthermore he inverted cause and effect about autism.

I don't think so. Autism has little to do with an attachment disorder. There are now known biological/organic causes, all known elements point toward an organic etiology.

If autism was an attachment disorder, you'd see more of it among orphans, in times of war, etc...

Autism is a symptom inventend by Paul Eugene Bleuler to better define Sigmund Freud's autoerotism. It is not a diagnosis in itself, but a symptom which may occure in many diagnosis; including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and attachment disorders. Before both Kanner, Asperger and Bettelheim studies this symptom, many different people used the word autism to describe a variety of conditions; like Minkowski, Rosanoff and Binder to name a few. It is in this regard, before the diagnosis falling under pervasive developmental disorder in ICD-10, was created I see the word autism. And in this regard it is a symptom which both can be a result of trauma and which may be congenital.

As I have experience trauma in addition to being born with Asperger syndrome, I have been in long time therapy which have tried to treat my injuries after the trauma. The only one who has been able to describe what I have been through and have postulated a treatment which have worked was Bruno Bettelheim. Of that reason Bettelheim stands as a very valueable source in understanding the effects of trauma and its defence mechanisms. In reading him with the understanding of autism in its etymological meaning this pose no problem to me. My Asperger syndrome is something completely different from my injuries from the trauma, but their share the feature of autism; the event in hyperfocusing on some of the environment such that other parts of the environment are ignored or sometimes lost; or said in the more common word the action of disconnecting from the world and falling into an own world.

This does not really surprise me, considering how the French place such a high value on social relationships.

I have been thinking about "refrigerator mother" ever since I first read this thread over a month ago and am preparing to eventually write here but not ready yet, so this is just a preliminary message. I used to have some Bettelhiem books but got rid of them a few years ago as something seemed off, but forget what..

A point I am making now is that the idea of "refrigerator mother" seems like an over-generalization and a kind of catch phrase which imo does not lead to much understanding, even if there is some truth there, but the idea about the orphans really does not make sense in terms of disproving that autism is in some way related to an attachment disorder, as one kind of brain might tend to encapsulate as a defense in a particular way that another kind of brain may not.

The way you speak of the known cause of autism seems to me to be naive, though maybe I am the one who is naive. Who is to say exactly where a causal chain is initiated in an instance such as this? Sometimes it is not so clear, as many things are interdependent, different causal chains intersecting to form a result, and, also, individual bias and black and white thinking can influence what one sees as "the beginning.".

Re packing in France, let me make it clear--- I do not condone that practice nor am I even a fan of the psychoanalytic profession which I perceive to be in many ways corrupt, though this does not mean I dismiss all of their theory or might not admire the work of an individual practitioner.

The conversation at this point reveals the limitations of current knowledge about autism spectrum disorders and attachment disorders. Part of the problem is that the diagnosis of attachment disorder requires trauma. You can take a set of symptoms and have it labeled ASD in the absence of trauma, but when there is a known trauma, that same set of symptoms may be labeled an attachment disorder. Are they truly mutually exclusive disorders? How does one account for the highly subjective nature of trauma? Must we develop a trauma scale to assist in diagnoses? If so, how would that even work? In addition, some of these diagnoses are age-sensitive, where a child under 5 is diagnosed with PDD temporarily, to see if the symptoms improve, worsen, or "clarify." What if they remain exactly the same? What if the symptoms present in some other way not described in the DSM?

I am not anti-psychiatry. Indeed, I probably would not function as well as I do without the years of help I received from mental health professionals. Rather, I think the limits of current knowledge should be tested and exposed regularly, so it is clear where the shortcomings exist and work can be done to remedy them. Clearly, the field of autism spectrum research is full of shortcomings, and the recent decision to remove Asperger's from the DSM highlights them.

France really should modernize their approach.

Well, I appreciate the good intent of your message, but I do not think France will do it because you say so, and, by the way, France does not think and feel or read messages here or anywhere else. "France" is what is called a personification. I do get what you're saying, but how do ideas afffect changes in the world? Probably not by magic....there has to be some kind of grip, meaning connecting of dots in such a way that they stick together, have a pull, an adhesive that affects other people. So what if packing is stopped in France, and I think it should be, but that is still an external facet of even deeper wrong thinking, not just in France, but in us, yes us.