Autism, crocodiles and Lacan

In October 2011 three psychoanalysts in France (Eric Laurent, Esthela Solano-Suarez and Alexandre Stevens) successfully sued the film-maker Sophie Robert for including their views of the origins and treatment of Autism in her film 'The Wall or psychoanalysis put to the test for autism' (they claim their views were 'distorted'). The judgement included a requirement to remove the sections including the litigants, to pay a fine and to pay legal costs. Since beginning this blog piece the film was removed from the internet, following a request from Robert's lawyer. This means that the piece below is incomplete, however we decided to publish it anyway, as the issue is important and deserving of more coverage in the UK than has so far been the case.

The 30 analysts interviewed in the film base their thinking on Lacanian theory and the work of Bruno Bettelheim, together with elements of Winnicott and Levi-Strauss. Analyst after analyst line up to articulate their theories, which include:

• That Autism is a psychosis
• That it is caused by the mother's coldness or depression, either at birth or before (the 'refrigerator mother' theory of Bettelheim)
• That it is caused by the mother's excessive emotional involvement ('incest' or 'fusion' - Lacan)
• The existence of the male lover/father of the baby is what prevents an incestuous relationship between the mother and the baby
• The father is there 'to protect the child from the incestuous desire of the mother'. 
• All mothers have incestuous desire towards their child, 'whether they are aware of it or not'
• That the mother's closeness to the child is the result of 'madness' in the first few months of the child's life
• This madness can be a 'roadblock to the emergence of language'
• People are 'not neurologically wired for language'
• There is 'no need' for autistic people to acquire speech - 'speech implies access to the symbolic, to the father'
• Autism is a 'defence against language'
• The baby that develops autism is subject to 'relational emptiness'
• All mothers 'desire death for their children', but this does not necessarily make them psychotic
• The baby believes that he/she 'is the mother's phallus, the object that would give everything, fill his mother with joy, make her orgasm'
• The mother is 'on the side of nature, she is animal', whereas the father 'founded culture'

In one scene we see  Lacanian psychoanalyst Dr Genevieve Loisin demonstrate the use of a toy crocodile. She states that if a child puts an object or their hand inside the crocodile's mouth then she finds this very worrying as "The crocodile is the Mother's belly, the mother's teeth; [...] the goal of our work is to forbid her to eat [the child]". She goes on to describe a pen in the mouth of the toy crocodile as the 'father's phallus' - "It is the father's law that bars the child from his mother and that forbids the mother to destroy the child".

Prof Bernard Golse:  "For the baby, one half of his genes... are from his mother, the other half from the father. So there is one part that is like the mother, this one does not pose any problem. But there is one part that is like the father and that immediately poses a problem. As soon as the baby is conceived the motherly organism will immediately secrete a very strong wave of antibodies to expel the baby that is half stranger to the mothers body.  [...]This comes at the biology level."

Of course, there is now a general understanding that autism has a neurological and genetic basis. The theories espoused, and the tenacity with which the analysts are attached to them, would be of academic interest only were it not for the real lives at stake here. The failure to reality test these theories, the clinging to psychoanalytic dogma, combined with the positions of power that many of the proponents are in, makes for a situation of some danger for people with Autism in France.  Two thirds of French children with autism do not attend school, evidence based approaches (behavioural and educational) are hard to access, and some French parents have left the country with their child to seek non-psychoanalytic treatment. In an allied scandal the practice of 'packing' (based on psychoanalytic concepts), where children are packed in cold, wet sheets, naked or in their underwear and held for up to 45 minutes, five days a week, sometimes for years, is reported to still be widely used in France.

Today is World Autism Day and the French government has made Autism a main theme for public awareness for 2012:  the question is, will we be able to legally view The Wall this year? And more importantly, will France see much progress on the treatment and care of children with Autism?

Update 17th April 2012 The film is back online here.