by Jacqueline Berger.
There holds the look, the look that gives perspective, the look that makes you feel you're growing up, the look that is stuck in you, the look that recognizes the echo the like, the look that separates the look dislocated, reassuring gaze, the alienated look, the look that gives existence to another while being separated from his own existence ...
And that is the gaze, as we can see every day in our daily life is substantially influenced by the idea we have of what a label, a category, a designated word.
If I stand before you as a journalist or a mother concerned by the problems autistic, or whatever else you choose to put forward, the look you are going to put me in my speech today, will be slightly different, will be determined by what you know of a particular category I designated as included in a group. I wrote the book
with autism Exit hope to make a difference however small, even minimally, in the look that each of us put in people grouped under the signifier of autism.
- For you to look differently visible disorders, symptoms that are obvious and sometimes even petrified to which we have in front, destroying the possibility of his thought to provoke reflections of fear or distress .
- For these events are understood for what they are: manifestations of suffering, and not heading to a state of irremediable weakness or as something threatening to oneself.
When we look at things this way - and this is so important a child with difficulties, as all other children, is a subject under construction - we are giving this child a smaller chance to "finish born", in the words that I like Barbara Donville or, which is the same , to enter society.
It is here at stake is the look of each one of us and not just the parents or relatives is at stake: it is necessary that this company is eager to understand what is at stake for children who do not grow ordinarily, it is also necessary to house the deviations in a normal environment, you understand that these differences are also a source of wealth and creativity.
Going against the speech that ranks with excess symptoms to lose the desire to make sense ... I would like to hear of the possibility of a positive development of the autistic syndromes, children classified as "autistic" is not are programmed to remain locked within their structure or to be essentially autistic autism as there are so many children diagnosed as such, once the diagnosis is recognized and suffering, we must forget to build the unique way each one, because there is a model, everything is to invent for each subject in each case and this requires considerable energy for parents and for all who care for them.
's duty is to help the entire society. They need material support, they need resources, but above all need this fraternity for a look that does not assess prior understanding, he does not feel threatened by difference , , even and above all, looking for food in this dispute. Here begins the repair by the link, there begins a mutual exchange. Open this road is a long and tiring, but it pays off and this can be raised only if we end up with the belief that autism is a state fatality: an insurmountable defect genes and neurons defective. This is possible only if the anxiety about the future of dying leaves and they can open eyes to this.
is the fear that now leads us to classify children into increasingly refined categories according to their behaviors. It is really the fear that makes any difference to read through the prism of the deficiency, lack. Watertight denominations tend to exclude from the common humanity multiply more and more to protect us from something that otherwise would touch us too closely.
And yet, is to be remembered? Among the pathological and the normal is a continuum. Yes, one can slide from one side to another in both directions, at one point in life, with one or two generations in between!
I wrote this book with the hope of reaching an audience outside could be called "the world of autism means a wider audience than parents, the wider environment, because the look is set symptoms of a child under construction is capital as the small man, the very small human being, whatever their way to grow, whatever their illness, suffering, is built first, before the eyes of others. There are eyes that open to a future that open outlook or, conversely, that they contain.
There looks, projections relating to the vocabulary used and the fixity transmitted, holding or, conversely, that hurt even more.
I wanted to focus this speech on the subject of the gaze in autism because there are two ways of looking at children as important difficulties and behavior relationship: either looking at them through what they lack or consider first, its capacities.
A child caught in the problem of autism is eaten by multiform anxieties, fears the intensity by not imagine. We are talking about children who have not able to invest the gaze of the Other as something that contains something that allows you to explore a safe space between himself and the Other, that allows you to feel that exists on a continuum with limits.
Under these conditions, the look can always lead to fractures, may be throbbing, hangover. Under these conditions, too, the gift of a benevolent eye, it contains, which is guided by what happens in the moment, in terms of emotion, relationship is more necessary and refreshing.
This free gift is the full and complete.
is the opposite of closed eyes, the look of one who knows, projecting too many images that do not correspond with what the child feels. This is a look that is not teachable by the child.
These children, more than others, longer than others, these children need a look that seeks an emotional and affective agreement to embark on the link to the other, this implies mutuality.
The hesitation of the eye requires the abandonment of the quest for certainty, is to take the risk of not knowing, of being wrong. But not live without risk and it is more fruitful, more life carrier that glorious little projections that lock them quickly, in a safe destination, categorized according to the theoretical principles apply to everyone.
When it comes to the smaller with which everything is to be built-in scientific studies, is evoked, more often, neuronal plasticity, the look that stops at the "full" is more creative, is that the individual returns to their entire existence as an individual, because it respects what is positive because it pushes the existential leap without reducing the dimension of being with their difficulties.
This view offers the possibility to follow in everyday life as everything plays in everyday life in small actions and gestures, words often, as in the days of care and education. One question that remains unanswered, an act inappropriate compared with demand, although this claim is, her also, inappropriately, is added to the wounds that fuel a feeling of no longer too impressive.
This view provides the ability to provide security, to contain, the need to control their own fears, constantly question themselves about what feeds our own vision of the world and the Other. This sometimes leads to confrontation with personal dizziness because the terror felt by these children are also ours, senses at one time or another of our existence, dominated, slowly, through luck, love from loved ones ...
If it is also because we have escaped to stupor, understood as petrification of emotions but in each of us, there are traces of these injuries existential core of these great fears related to the fear of death. And do not need much to be reactivated.
There is no unique way of being in the world, a unique way to succeed in life but every human being is constructed by integrating inside the different viewpoints of others. And the look is full of our feelings but also aware of our unconscious emotions.
I did not want to bear witness to my personal history if not the weight of the look that each of us feel concerned. I experienced along my journey as a mother's comfort look that helps you feel proud to help overcome difficulties, find solutions to realize their own look on your child, and be happy to change it, because I feel happy life to belong to the community of others.
I have also experienced the bitterness of looks that plunge into a victim role, which excludes, to undermine confidence in yourself, that discount.
Parents can not be alone if they are grouped together. The whole society need to constantly invent new solutions, real and human, are not only under the semblance of inclusion, but they allow a real entry into the human community, unique arrangements that make ease the pain to the world and enable unique creatives made towards the enrichment of all.
welfare can not be satisfied with standard replies, protocol, reproducible from one to another, that generate ghettos. No mass solutions to autism and the way of hope I think is in the preservation of the variety in the agility of small structures that promote the creation.
severely disturbed children need, above all, a look that does not evaluate before viewing, which does not measure everything with a standard yardstick, a look that gives others a chance to become fully what it is, strange and uncomfortable it is. Looking
that of existence, that does not seek to dominate. It gives a look that says, sharing, that does not assert its superiority even by the indirect pathway of piety.
* Statement made at the Conference on "The specificity of the workings of the autistic person" 28 and January 29, 2010 in Dijon (France) in a session entitled "The eyes of others on the unique role autistic child. "
Jacqueline Berger is a journalist and author of Sortir de l'Autisme, Ed Buchet-Chastel (2008). Translation: Master Dora the collaboration V Coccoz and C. Cuñat.
COLLECTED: FORUM NEWS ABOUT AUTISM.
http://foroautismo.blogspot.com/ Number 4, 17 April 2010
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