O mal-estar na cultura tem diagnóstico? Uma leitura psicanalítica da epidemia neoliberal de autismo

Abstract

Contemporary times are marked by the hegemony of neoliberal rationality. In the midst of this, there is a progressive incentive to knowledge (which often earns the scientific seal) that encloses subjects in diagnoses and standardized treatment prescriptions. In this context, an autism epidemic is observed, as a reference to an unprecedented multiplication of attributions for the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Triggered by a clinical case, this work seeks to investigate, from the perspective of psychoanalysis, the malaise in neoliberal culture, based on an attempt to locate what is at stake in the phenomenon of the epidemic of (spectrum of) autism diagnoses. To achieve this, the proposal is to intertwine the elements that appear in the case presented with what Freud and Lacan theorized about malaise in culture and the Superego – a psychic instance, considered by Freud as fundamental in the interface between subject and culture. From this theoretical path, it is worth noting that the universalization of the “known” subject of science, extremely present nowadays, suffocates what defines the subject of the unconscious: its singularity, its evanescent, and inexorably lacking character. This path leads to the issue of segregation operated by science in its marriage with the Capitalist Discourse. In 1967, Lacan (1967/2003) points to the reorganization of social groups that science has been operating in the name of universalization that it introduces; of a totalizing knowledge that says (what it knows!) about the subjects. Could the “autism epidemic” be an effect of segregation? After this reflection, another case is exposed with the aim of illustrating how the ethics of psychoanalysis can face the thrust of social outcome and autistic enjoyment operated by the Capitalist Discourse. This clinical vignette serves as the outcome of this work, as it shows how the operation of the Analyst’s Discourse affected a subject who had been diagnosed with autism, producing subversive effects both on their history and culture.