Description
Rethinking Autism with Dolto takes up a principal legacy of Françoise Dolto’s immense project—her conviction that autism is a regression to the archaic.
Dolto theorizes that the infant in utero, deep in dreams, is receptive to the audition of “phonemes” during the pre-conscious “archaic stage” of psychosexual maturation. That dream-work on words—an idiosyncratic prehistory at the onset of mental and emotional life—secures the unconscious circulation of affect and the ontogeny of thought long prior to speech, seeding associative thinking and facilitating self-regulation. Kathleen Saint-Onge uses the written work of four nonverbal autistic authors in seeking corroboration for Dolto’s formulations, finding thoughtful self-reflections that relate the experience of living in silence with relentless anxiety while relying on regression as a defence. Dolto’s unprecedented insights into the infant’s earliest learning carry formidable implications for autism interventions, and for primary language and literacy. At issue is an enduring susceptibility to archaic echoes—the haphazard, securing return of pre-invested phonemes—in communicative exchanges, including reading and writing.
Rethinking Autism with Dolto considers unconscious processes as inherently reparative, heralding the responsibility education holds for human health, and supports a rethinking of autism that presumes competence. Readers are invited to new conversations in psychoanalysis, child development, education and linguistics through an exploration of the unconscious concomitants of first language acquisition.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
PART ONE: ANALYSIS
Preamble for Part One
Chapter 1: Conservation
Preliminary Words
A. Archaic
B. Affect
C. Anxiety
D. Environment
Chapter 2: Circulation
Preliminary Words
A. Third
B. Passivity
C. Regression
D. Symbolization
Chapter 3: Presentification
Preliminary Words
A. Phonemes
B. Traces
C. Witness
D. Exteriorization
Summary for Part One
PART TWO: EVIDENCE
Preamble for Part Two
Chapter 4: Primary Defence
Preliminary Words
A. Regression
B. Anxiety
Chapter 5: Auditory Influence
Preliminary Words
A. Phonemes
B. Passivity
Chapter 6: Resonant Experience
Preliminary Words
A. Exteriorization
B. Witness
Summary for Part Two
PART THREE: PRACTICE
Preamble for Part Three
Chapter 7: Name—Awaiting Echoes
Preliminary Words
A. Inscription
B. Reverberations
Chapter 8: Library—(Re)finding Echoes
Preliminary Words
A. Inscription
B. Reverberations
Chapter 9: Transcription—Producing Echoes
Preliminary Words
A. Inscription
B. Reverberations
Chapter 10: Forest—Following Echoes
Preliminary Words
A. Inscription
B. Reverberations
Summary for Part Three
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
