Farewell, Diagnosis

This book will engage psychoanalysis simultaneously as a method and an object of critique. Psychoanalysis generally advocates for curiosity in the clinical process, particularly about the patient’s inner world. It suspends knowing and defining, especially the self / other, in favor of dynamism, surprise, even chaos. Yet it seems to lose sight of these guiding principles and traditions the moment it encounters autism. While psychoanalysis is a novel intervention in autism diagnosis - in that it does attempt to theorize an autistic mind and internal world - it largely attempts to do so in ways that mark autism as in-(or even anti)human, as lacking in the theory of mind and richness of internal life that are the hallmark of psychoanalysis. These foreclosures slow the progress of psychoanalysis and further foreclose opportunities for intervention within and without the consulting room.