Perpetual Children

The Politics of Autism in France since 1950

Jonathyne Briggs (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

208 Seiten

2025
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-768297-5 (ISBN)

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Perpetual Children is a narrative history of debates over the definition and appropriate treatment of autism in France since 1950, noting the French divergence from psychological norms in the rest of the world. Examining the works of psychoanalysts, the activities of parents' associations, and the efforts of autistic self-advocates, the book argues that the consistent framing of autism as a form of childhood psychosis marginalized autists and emphasized the voices of parents and professionals. This framing also justified the continued use of psychoanalysis as an intervention due to the placement of autism within the family dynamic.

Even as research in the United States pointed to biological and neurological conceptions of autism, the French continued to support a psychogenic origin for the disorder, impacting state policy and medical norms for decades. This position energized conflict between professionals and parents concerning expertise, leading to political and legal changes at the end of the twentieth century. By the twenty-first century, French autists entered the debate to transform its parameters and assert their own position as experts on autism, reconceiving the disorder outside of childhood to a limited degree. Perpetual Children reveals the international dimension of the story of autism and how the French context provides a different perspective on its history.

Jonathyne Briggs is Associate Dean of Humanities and the Arts and Professor of History at Indiana University Northwest. He has published on French popular music and globalization as well as the history of autism in France. He lives in the south suburbs of Chicago.

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: The French Divergence
1. The Transatlantic Era of Autism
Childrearing Experts
Child Psychology
Infantile Psychosis and the Case of Sammy
Building on the Consensus
2. Parents as a United Front
Parenting in the Age of Autism
White Butterflies as Early Advocates
Chambery and the International Politicization of Associations
The Fire at Froissy and the National Stage
The Politics of Froissy
3. The Psychoanalytic State
Associations and the French State
Experimental Schools and Psychoanalysis
Parenting by Radio and the Return of the Expert
Parents as Participants and the Limits of Law
Un autre regard sur la folie
L'affaire Bettelheim
4. Parental Expertise as Resistance
UNAPEI and Parent Experts
Confronting the System
Diagnostics and Old Wine in New Bottles
Parents in the Public Sphere
La grande cause nationale 1990
5. The Deepening Divergence
Carrying on la cause
Against the Hegemony
Renewed Activism
The European Dimension
Psychoanalytic Resistance
La baguette magique
6. The Battle and the Arrival of Self,Advocacy
Le livre noir de la psychanalyse
The Wall and the Battle against It
The Beginnings of Self,Advocacy
The New Militancy
Organizations for Autistic Identity
Conclusion: A New Age of Autism?
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	10.12.2024
Reihe/Serie	New Histories of Psychology
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	166 x 241 mm
Gewicht	445 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Klinische Psychologie
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-10	0-19-768297-9 / 0197682979
ISBN-13	978-0-19-768297-5 / 9780197682975
Zustand	Neuware