Two kinds of autism: a comparison of distinct understandings of psychiatric disease

Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 19 (1):111-123 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this article, I argue that the history and philosophy of autism need to account for two kinds of autism. Contemporary autism research and practice is structured, directed and connected by an ‘ontological understanding of disease’. This implies that autism is understood as a disease like any other medical disease, existing independently of its particular manifestations in individual patients. In contrast, autism in the 1950s and 1960s was structured by a psychoanalytical framework and an ‘individual understanding of disease’. This implied that autism was not a distinct disease but an idiosyncratic and meaningful response of the child to a disturbed development of the ego. These two kinds of autism are embedded in and reveal two very different ‘styles of psychiatric thought’.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Kinds of kinds: A conceptual taxonomy of psychiatric categories.Nick Haslam - 2002 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 9 (3):203-217.
Are psychiatric kinds real?Helen Beebee & Nigel Sabbarton-Leary - 2010 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 6 (1):11-27.
Diseases as natural kinds.Stefan Dragulinescu - 2010 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31 (5):347-369.
Does catatonia have a specific brain biology?Bernhard Bogerts - 2002 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (5):580-581.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-09-07

Downloads
13 (#886,512)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Genesis and development of a scientific fact.Ludwik Fleck - 1979 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by T. J. Trenn & R. K. Merton.
On the distinction between disease and illness.Christopher Boorse - 1975 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 5 (1):49-68.
The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique.Adolf Grünbaum - 1984 - Berkeley: University of California Press.
Defining 'health' and 'disease'.Marc Ereshefsky - 2009 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (3):221-227.

View all 15 references / Add more references