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Autism has had two [[meanings]]. The first, historically associated with schizophrenia, refers to the investment of a person's [[psychic ]] [[energy ]] in his or her own [[delusions]], which prevents the person from investing in the [[outside ]] [[world]]. The second refers to an [[absence ]] of [[development ]] of [[communication ]] with [[others ]] beginning in earliest infancy.

The [[word ]] was introduced into the [[psychiatric ]] [[vocabulary ]] by Eugen Bleuler in 1911 in his description of schizophrenia. However, a hint of it could be detected as early as 1907 in the correspondence between [[Freud ]] and [[Jung]]: "Bleuler still misses a clear definition of [[autoerotism ]] and its specifically [[psychological ]] effects. He has, however, accepted the [[concept ]] for his Dem[entia] pr[aecox] contribution to Aschaffenburg's Handbook. He doesn't [[want ]] to say autoerotism (for reasons we all [[know]]), but prefers 'autism' or 'ipsism"' (Freud and Jung, p. 44-45).

Bleuler, who very early on took an interest in Freud's [[work]], did not accept his [[libido ]] [[theory]], and this was the [[reason ]] for the amputation that produced the word autism from autoerotism: to distance it from the [[libidinal ]] significations of the latter term, while keeping the former's Greek root, auto, [[meaning ]] "[[self]]." For Bleuler, the autism of schizophrenia is a shutting-in of the [[subject ]] in an impenetrable, incommunicable world, closed in on itself, made up of unorganized delusional elements to which all the subject's disposable [[mental ]] energy is attached.

In 1943, Leo Kanner adopted the term to describe "early [[infantile ]] autism," a syndrome associated with problems of communication and [[social ]] [[behavior]], as well as serious [[developmental ]] disturbances of mental functioning, most notably of [[imagination]]

[[Psychoanalytic ]] research bearing upon infantile autism led to significant advances in the [[understanding ]] of the beginnings of psychic [[life]]. From the genetic point of view, for example, infantile autism corresponds to a [[stage ]] of [[psychical ]] development to which the [[child ]] regresses or remains fixated. In research with normal infants after her initial studies of autistic [[children]], Margaret Mahler placed autism on a developmental axis that progresses from [[birth ]] to "[[separation]]-individuation." Donald [[Winnicott ]] attributed the genesis of autism to [[maternal ]] care, particularly the ability to protect the [[infant ]] from inconceivable [[anxieties]]: a [[feeling ]] of disintegration, [[being ]] unable to stop falling, [[lacking ]] relation to its own [[body]], and having no orientation. Bruno Bettelheim defined the "extreme [[situation]]" that set the [[baby ]] on the path to becoming autistic as a feeling that it could not act in a manner favorable to itself, but that every [[action ]] on its own part could only be unfavorable because of a "mutuality" between the child and its [[mother]].

From the [[structural ]] point of view, autism is governed by a [[structure ]] that establishes mental functioning. The students of Jacques [[Lacan ]] developed the concept in this direction by relating it sometimes to the concept of "[[foreclosure]]" (Piera Aulagnier and Maud Mannoni), sometimes to "[[jouissance]]" (Éric Laurent), and sometimes to the "[[topology ]] of the subject" (Rosine and Robert [[Lefort]]).

From a [[dynamic ]] point of view, it was possible to explore infantile autism in [[terms ]] of the [[transference ]] and [[counter-transference]]. In 1975, Donald Meltzer proposed a [[model ]] articulated around [[three ]] [[concepts]]: "the dismantling of the ego," "the bidimensionality of the [[object ]] relation," and "the adhesive [[identification]]." Dismantling is a [[splitting ]] of the ego along the lines of articulation of the different sensorial modalities, so the autistic child never concentrates [[feelings ]] on the same object, and stimuli received is never synthesized. The world, perceived in this way, is without depth or volume and is reduced to a juxtaposition of sensations. Bidimensionality is a mode of relation to a libidinal object, established in a world without depth. It is a relation of surface to surface, a binding with an object not experienced as having an interior. Adhesive identification is the result of bidimensionality: the self [[identifies ]] itself with the object on the surface, owning to no more interior [[space ]] than the object itself. This prevents mental communication necessary to the development of [[thought]].

Later, Meltzer proposed a model based on the theory of "aesthetic [[conflict]]." He suggested that the fetus, at the end of pregnancy, is eager to exercise its senses but receives only the most filtered stimuli in utero. Birth would be experienced as liberation and as something marvelous because of the abundance of sensorial stimulation. The impact would be experienced as an intense aesthetic [[experience ]] that would at the same [[time ]] be a source of [[anxiety ]] because of the vivid contrast between the infant's overabundant [[awareness ]] of the qualities of the object's surface and [[complete ]] [[misrecognition ]] of the object's interior. Occasionally, the impact of the aesthetic object would be so intense as to force the infant to withdraw into infantile autism.

Frances Tustin has emphasized a [[fantasy ]] of discontinuity, which the autistic infant experiences physically as the tearing away of a part of its own substance. So long as it [[lacks ]] the experience that makes possible [[symbolization]], an infant would seem to require the [[illusion ]] of continuity between its body and the object upon which its [[drives ]] are [[satisfied]]. The autistic infant imagines a catastrophic rupture in this continuity that takes the [[form ]] of a fantasy of mouth-tongue-nipple-[[breast]], experiencing a damaged breast and torn-off nipple that leaves the mouth a black [[hole ]] inhabited by tormenting [[objects]]. To protect itself from the [[pain ]] caused by this black hole, the autistic infant constructs the [[delusion ]] of merging with the [[environment ]] that abolishes any separation or space, any [[difference ]] or [[alterity]]. To maintain these delusionary autistic objects, [[concrete ]] objects are not manipulated for use [[value ]] or [[symbolic ]] value, but solely for the surface sensations that they offer, giving the illusion of continuity between body and environment. By means of his or her own secretions (tears, saliva, urine, [[feces]]) and autistic objects, the subject creates what Tustin called "autistic forms," which are cutaneous or mucous with nebulous, unstable contours. The autistic subject procures these as a salve to minimize pain and as protection from the exterior world. But these autistic forms cannot be shared with others or [[identified ]] with objects in the [[external ]] world. The autistic child uses sensitivity to stimuli to protect himself or herself from the external world; Frances Tustin calls this "[[perverse ]] self-sensuality."

# [[Freud, Sigmund]], and Jung, Carl G. (1974a [1906-13]). The Freud-Jung letters: the correspondence between [[Sigmund Freud ]] and C. G. Jung (William McGuire, Ed.; Ralph Manheim and R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton [[University ]] Press Press.