Anomalies of French life: reverence for psychoanalysis; or Le Mur, autism, and the shrinks

In the past few days and weeks, a French documentary about the use of psychoanalysis to treat autism, Le Mur, has been raising hackles and consciousness all over France. I was surprised to learn that psychoanalysis is still overwhelmingly the method used to treat autistic children in France. To put it mildly, it is old-fashioned, like phrenology, and not known for impressive results. You could call it the French exception.

In psychoanalytical treatment of autism, the mother is blamed for the child's autism: she was too cold, or possibly too warm (emotionally "incestuous"), and this terrible behavior made her child psychotic. The nicer shrinks say that the mothers didn't severely damage their child on purpose. 

Le Mur is a Michael-Moore-style documentary in which well known French psychoanalysts who treat autistic children find themselves hoist by their own petard and are made to look arrogant idiots, or at times well-meaning ones, in their very own words. To be fair, some of them seem like kind people; but the things they are saying do not come off as sensible. Furious at the movie, three of the psychoanalysts who had agreed to be interviewed sued the documentary maker, saying their words were taken out of context. Yesterday the tribunal in Lille agreed and ordered the documentary maker, Sophie Robert, to pay them €30,000 and to remove the incriminating passages from the 52-minute-long film, which as she points out means no movie. She plans to appeal. She also plans to reveal all the footage, including some she said was worse than what she put in the movie.

Crocodile representing the mother. The psychoanalyst says she is happy when the child hits it.

However, it was a Pyrrhic victory for the shrinks, because the lawsuit itself made the film far better known. Le Mur is making headlines in all the media this week, and is being shown to people involved with autism around the globe (making France look ridiculous). It has now become a cause célèbre, with journalists calling the Lille judgment a dangerous precedent for censorship, and a French lawmaker sponsoring a bill to make psychoanalysis illegal in treating autism. As it should be. 

In the meantime, the film will be banned from the sites where it is still available in France, so if you are in France when you read this, and want to see it, check it out now. (There are subtitles, although not by an English speaker.) 

If you don't have time, you can get a bit of the flavor of it by these little tidbits. I'm going on and on a bit because the film made me angry. I'm sure you, too, know people with autistic children. Do they strike you as so cold and evil so that they could turn a child psychotic? That is what these shrinks believe. They have forgotten their Hippocratic oath: first, do no harm. Think how many divorces and how much misery they have caused in the families of these children. Psychoanalysis is basically a set of unprovable and undisprovable beliefs: the trademark of a religion, not a science.

The pregnant mother does not think of her child as a person

The child is treated coldly and becomes autistic

The mother does not want the child, and this causes autism

 

or she wants the child too much, and has an incestuous relationship with him 

This shrink declares that all mothers have an incestuous relationship with their child, "whether they are aware of it or not"  (well, that's that then, isn't it?)

As Marie-Antoinette famously said when she was accused of incest toward her son, "La nature se refuse à répondre à une pareille inculpation faite à une mère. J'en appelle à toutes celles qui peuvent se trouver ici." [Nature itself refuses to answer to such an accusation against a mother. I call on all the mothers who might be here."] And the women in the room were furious, and for once supported her; the claim of incest was withdrawn from the accusation.

Note that this shrink is talking about emotional incest by the mother, versus actual incest by the father.

They come clean if they talk long enough.

Literally admitting that a shrink can't actually educate or treat a child with autism.

Progress is not expected from the child. According to psychoanalysis, this liberates the child. Or... just leaves it incontinent and speechless as an adult.

Psychoanalysts try to make you happy with your humdrum little lives; it would be unrealistic to have big hopes for a child with autism.

O.M.G.

Comments

[chrissoup]

O.M.G. is right. I'd heard about the scandal of what passes for care for autistic children in France and was wondering if there had been any change. Thank you for your post. I hope the documentary does a lot of good.

[Bsc]

Recent research indicates that Autism has nothing to do with psychoanalytic thought. It is sad that France lags behind the rest of the world in the treatment of Autism.
This also holds true in their treatment of the handcap person.

[Nage Papillon]

I had no idea that the French thought that. I'm kind of shocked and honestly am a bit worried now. My brother who has a mild form of autism will be visiting France in a couple weeks with our mother. It's possible they will not notice he is a little off since he speaks a different language but I hope nobody harasses them or says anything nasty to my mother who is by far one of the sweetest women I know.

[Sedulia]

I think you're pretty safe if he's a visitor. Most younger people don't believe this stuff any more but the shrinks still have a grip on the institutions. Sad.