Autism in France: Psychoanalysis, Packing, Other Travesties

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Read On!!: http://www.wrongplanet.net/article421.html

You would think the country that brought the world the Enlightenment for all intents and purposes and is home to some of the finest academic institutions in the world, would be on a modern footing when it comes to Autism education. Unbelievable.

I was surprised when I first heard about this too.

I'm traveling to paris do make a documentary on the filmmaker Sophie and on the state of autism in france.

Good luck with that. Eat a lot of croissants and crepes. A part of me is sadly not surprised knowing the history of France and the way they have actively done bad things without being told to do so...not trying to bash France, but to put it on a historical footing...the way modern advanced societies can believe in barbaric practices ( World War I, the Holocaust during WW 2) etc. But also achieve great things: modern medicine, transportation networks, etc.

Ah, the French. They have two extremes, one being the Lacanian psychoanalysis that is criticized as being too authoritarian, and rightly so; and the other extreme being the thought of Michel Foucault, who believed that criminals and schizophrenics, as marginalized elements, have more moral authority than the rest of us.

In any case, there is a major anti-psychiatry movement in France. Maybe this kind of thing is part of the reason why:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_psychiatry

I was surprised to see that when I was on the forum list. I clicked it and couldn't believe my eyes!

I was actually surprised when I first heard about this. I would of thought that France would be up-to-date with regards to more recent thinking in psychiatry and psychology.

It's not "all french people", it really is the psychologists and psychiatrists, who live in a sort of weird common alternate reality, they believe and claim things that would have any of us locked up, and they have no scientific basis for their beliefs, just the works of some weirdo who one day decided that mothers made their kids autistic because they were too close to them (so they could no even see her as another person) or too emotionally distant and cold, or because they were depressed during pregnancy.... Someone just decided that, wrote it down and forgot about it, and those eople are learning it at med school, and applying it, and reading the works of other weird people, and they are in a bubble of insanity that they mistake for reality.
And THESE are the doctors our children speak to. They get asked questions about abuse, inappropriate touching, their words are interpreted following an intricate word association based system, or theories dating sometimes 40 years, having never been proven or scientifically examined.... Parents lose their children or are afraid of losing them if they refuse to have ther child see a psychologist, there are psychologists at school, the same type of lacan/freud worshippers, they are everywhere and they keep pushing you until you give in, I really have to be constantly on guard, watch what adults tell my son, what he tells them, everything is interpreted and analysed.
You can imagine a how psychoanalysis can cause damage on an autistic kid who has no idea what the questions are really about. (mostly sex and abuse)
You can also imagine the level of anxiety a parent of an autistic kid who does not know what information to reveal and which are private , and will tell his whole life story , in his usual trusting way, to a stranger who will then interpret everything and twist his words until he's confused enough to have a meltdown. Which is also interpreted.
So yes, the parents are fighting this as much as they can, but it's not going to be enough. We can't do THIS revolution alone...

Would you bring me back a shotglass that says France on it, if I reimburse you for the postage and the glass itself? My husband collects them.

Congrats on going there! That's a place on my "bucket list". My oldest DD and I want to go there together one day. Paris that is. My husband wants to go because Jean Luc Picard is supposed to be from there.

I've honestly never given any thought as to what kind of treatment AS/ASD would have in France. I only know of them through books, movies, and tv, and they all seem so healthy and well adjusted that I guess I assumed they would take everything in stride and not only be ok with their kids having AS/ASD but that society in general there would be ok with it. I mean, the bohemians of the 19th century went to Paris, and bohemianism is a stones throw from some people with AS, so I just thought.....

Either way, honey, congratulations on going! Have a great time! Get all your shots. And have breakfast one morning in Paris, early, in a sidewalk cafe, when the sun is rising and the vendors are all still coming out and setting up. Notice and photograph everything. Also please, for me (even though you don't know me, I want to know this) notice the smells. I've heard that Paris has it's own wonderful smell and nobody has yet been able to explain it. I'd really like to know what it is like.

Don't eat snails.

Enjoy!

Yes, if the sign says 'escargot' politely decline!

I watched the wall (documentary in France) which is where this was all revealed and I was shocked by the way doctors 'treat' autistic patients in their country. It is all very Freudian with a bit of good ol' Bettelheim thrown in for good measure. Sadly this also happens in the UK (my mum has been blamed for my autistic/ADHD behaviour many times) but at least we have got the specialists available even if it takes a long time to get to them. In France it seems the answer is 'you suck as a parent' or that the kid has been abused. Hopefully the people in France will spread the message that autism is not a disease caused by abusive refrigerator mothers.

One thing I noticed from the documentary "The Wall" is that they still worship this guy named Bruno Bettleheim who was a 20th century psychologist who has mostly been rejected by most people by the 80s, but the French psychiatrists say that he has been wrongly rejected and that he is brilliant for doing work at a time where nobody cared about autistic children and for it's time it was brilliant and still has its place today.

Hmmm... is that so? Well, I did some more research on other psychologist around his time or before and I discovered Leo Kanner and of course, Hans Asperger.

The difference with Hans Asperger is that unlike Bettleheim who escaped World War II and immigrated to the US, Asperger stayed in Austria in the midst of the war and studied the high functioning end of the spectrum. He actually treated them as human and saw their potential as "little professors" and did not put blame on parenting. Unfortunately, unlike Bettleheim, the school where he worked was bombed and most of his finding were lost for decades until the 80s and 90s unlike Bettleheim was safe in the US.

Still, you also have Leo Kanner who published before Bettleheim who viewed that it was not caused by bad parenting and instead something neurological that they were born with and I quote:
“The children’s aloneness from the beginning of life makes it difficult to attribute the whole picture exclusively to the type of the early parental relations with our patients…We must, then assume that these children have come into the world with innate inability to form the usual biologically provided affective contact with people"

Kanner is the real pioneer! If anything, Bettleheim made society's understanding of autism go backwards!

So French psychiatrists, it is total bologna for you to say that nobody cared because there were two others that cared and these two people, especially Hans Asperger who even has a form of autism named after him, who will be remembered fondly for actually viewing autism as something biological and not based on bad parenting and viewing them as actually human, especially in a time like World War II in Austria when those with autism were viewed as less than human.


Though, one thing about the packing is that yes, I could definitely see why it is cruel, I mean, being wrapped up in cold, wet sheets in uncomfortable, though warm being wrapped in sheets actually does sound really nice...

http://www.paperblog.fr/827347/canada-d ... u-packing/
It's in french, but you can see how "uncomfortable " it can be when practiced by people who lack common sense: Gabriel Poirier, 9 eyears old, died because he was packed in a 17,5 kilos blanket, the child himself weighed 24 kilos. He was placed on his belly, arms down by his sides, with his face covered by the blanket, and left alone in the room with a 20 minutes timer.
After the 20 minutes were up, the person in charge came to get him and found him limp, in a coma, and he never woke up.
My theory is that autistic kids panick from claustrophobia, then enter a state of shock, or shut down to avoid fighting the situation (fighting it makes it hard to breathe)that the therapists translate as "relaxing". How can you tell the difference on a non verbal child.....

Yes, well, there have been studies about how those with autism respond to deep pressure positively which is why they make weighted blankets.

Though, one thing that is different is that unlike weighted blankets and the like, a 17.5kg blanket is not suitable for a 24kg child. Manufacturers of the weighted blankets actually recommend that the blanket only be ten percent of the person's body weight and then a little more. Basically enough for the the deep pressure from the blanket to be effective, but still make it possible for the person to remove the blanket at will and never as a restraint.

Large portions of Paris reek of urine. Really.

ETA: I base that statement on a visit I made to the city in 2000. Just for laughs, I Googled paris smells like urine--and sure enough, it's not just me.

Why does it smell like urine I wonder? Don't tell me people still throw urine and waste in the streets still!

Haha no; our hobos have no other place to pee than street corners, so.....they do. And it bloody stinks.