Otherness in Autism: From the Fellow Human-Being to the Other Synthesis

Abstract

The present article investigates an essential question raised by the experience of the psychoanalytic clinic of autism: otherness. The goal of this research is to establish the specificity and the variety of forms of otherness in autism. From the Freudian premise of the complex of the ‘fellow human being’ (Nebenmensch) to the distinction between this and the Other as a place of language, this research examines the forms of otherness that can arise in autism, such as identified by J.-C. Maleval. They are as follow: the autistic object, the double, and the synthetic Other. For this purpose, this paper finds support on life events narrated by autistics as well as clinical fragments from the specialized literature.