Abstract
We will present some challenges faced in institutional psychoanalytic work with children diagnosed with autism. The parents’ recurrent accounts of the medical diagnosis and the relationship established with their children will illustrate our discussions. We will emphasize the importance of a critical position on the professional’s part in relation to the directions of a totalitarian and timeless diagnosis, focusing on the understanding of human suffering and psychopathologies in our time. The discontent facing individuals at society’s margins results in the search for remedies, such as functional rehabilitation and behavioral adequacy. The National Policy for the Protection of the Rights of Autistics, which has been demanded due to the discontent and the struggle of family members, suffers from the incidence of contemporary scientific discourse in the direction of its alleged universality. Such a policy guarantees not only legitimate achievements in the condition of the citizenship of autistics, but also promotes their legal and anonymous protection, through codification.
Keywords:
autism; family; diagnosis; psychopathology; psychoanalysis