PIPOL 8 –
AUTISM
AUTISM
The autist – a subject outside the norm?
Neus Carbonnel
The norm is
nothing but a statistical concept, an average of measurements. The slippage
from the norm as average towards the norm as precept is a principle of the
current regulatory politics. The management of populations requires norms in
order to normalise. Ultimately, the aim is to make the jouissance of the
speaking being easier to govern. In the end, as Jacques-Alain Miller has
elucidated, the cipher has been converted into « the guarantee of
being ». We know that psychoanalysis could not be further from this
ideology, in as much as if there were anything we could formulate as guarantee
of being it would be the symptom. And at the level of the symptom, the most
singular of a speaking being, there is no possible norm.
nothing but a statistical concept, an average of measurements. The slippage
from the norm as average towards the norm as precept is a principle of the
current regulatory politics. The management of populations requires norms in
order to normalise. Ultimately, the aim is to make the jouissance of the
speaking being easier to govern. In the end, as Jacques-Alain Miller has
elucidated, the cipher has been converted into « the guarantee of
being ». We know that psychoanalysis could not be further from this
ideology, in as much as if there were anything we could formulate as guarantee
of being it would be the symptom. And at the level of the symptom, the most
singular of a speaking being, there is no possible norm.
Autistic
subjects pose an obstacle to the normalising frenzy. In the first instance
because they do not yield easily to the demand of the Other. Also because we
know that they are at the margin of the most efficacious mechanism for the
implementation of normalisation, which is identification. Normalising autistic
subjects means subduing their conditions of jouissance, which is why they are
required to abandon their stereotypes, their strange behaviours. Without taking
into account what the function of such manifestations might have been, it can
happen that normalising practices obtain as a response even more discordant
expressions of jouissance. Hence, the more norm the more segregation, as we see
in the exponential increase of medication where the subject’s means of
functioning have failed.
subjects pose an obstacle to the normalising frenzy. In the first instance
because they do not yield easily to the demand of the Other. Also because we
know that they are at the margin of the most efficacious mechanism for the
implementation of normalisation, which is identification. Normalising autistic
subjects means subduing their conditions of jouissance, which is why they are
required to abandon their stereotypes, their strange behaviours. Without taking
into account what the function of such manifestations might have been, it can
happen that normalising practices obtain as a response even more discordant
expressions of jouissance. Hence, the more norm the more segregation, as we see
in the exponential increase of medication where the subject’s means of
functioning have failed.
In Lacanian
psychoanalysis we oppose invention to the norm: the invention of each speaking
being in relation to what in his or her body remains marked by the effects of
lalangue. This is why the clinic of autism oriented by Lacanian psychoanalysis
puts such emphasis on invention. The inventions of the subject, however, are at
times not easy to understand or to put up with. Beyond those that can easily be
included in the social bond, those that we find in so-called ‘high functioning’
autistic subjects, there exist discreet inventions. Often invisible from the
view of social ideals, these constitute great achievements in as much as they
allow the subject to live with the real whose weight they bear. These are the
inventions that psychoanalysis can and must give account of. In effect, it is
these singularities that are most under threat from the normalising frenzy of
the epoch of the hegemony of the cipher.
psychoanalysis we oppose invention to the norm: the invention of each speaking
being in relation to what in his or her body remains marked by the effects of
lalangue. This is why the clinic of autism oriented by Lacanian psychoanalysis
puts such emphasis on invention. The inventions of the subject, however, are at
times not easy to understand or to put up with. Beyond those that can easily be
included in the social bond, those that we find in so-called ‘high functioning’
autistic subjects, there exist discreet inventions. Often invisible from the
view of social ideals, these constitute great achievements in as much as they
allow the subject to live with the real whose weight they bear. These are the
inventions that psychoanalysis can and must give account of. In effect, it is
these singularities that are most under threat from the normalising frenzy of
the epoch of the hegemony of the cipher.
The
Lacanian clinic of autism is a radical confrontation, without concessions, with
the contemporary politics of the norm and of segregation. For this is reason it
is no accident that the current persecution of psychoanalytical treatments of
autism is so ferocious. It is in this clinic that the wager on the irreducible
singularity of the subject is clear and diametrically opposed to the ideology
of the cipher.
Lacanian clinic of autism is a radical confrontation, without concessions, with
the contemporary politics of the norm and of segregation. For this is reason it
is no accident that the current persecution of psychoanalytical treatments of
autism is so ferocious. It is in this clinic that the wager on the irreducible
singularity of the subject is clear and diametrically opposed to the ideology
of the cipher.
In this section you will find the contributions of
our colleagues demonstrating how far being outside the norm can take us. Outside
the norm, no doubt, in order to attain a better treatment of the real.
