Before Kanner, “autistic” referred to a symptom, not a syndrome. Freud used the word “autistic,” too. when he contrasted the “social” with what he called the “narcissistic,” but was was clear that by “narcissistic” he meant the same thing as “autistic,” “in which the satisfaction of the instincts is partially or totally withdrawn from the influence of other people.” Freud didn’t care for the word “autistic”. It might be because by the early 1920s some doctors uses “autistic” to refer to daydreams and fantasies; Freud thought the word should refer to an impairment in social functioning.
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Before Kanner, “autistic” referred to a symptom, not a syndrome. Freud used the word “autistic,” too. when he contrasted the “social” with what he called the “narcissistic,” but was was clear that by “narcissistic” he meant the same thing as “autistic,” “in which the satisfaction of the instincts is partially or totally withdrawn from the influence of other people.” Freud didn’t care for the word “autistic”. It might be because by the early 1920s some doctors uses “autistic” to refer to daydreams and fantasies; Freud thought the word should refer to an impairment in social functioning.
September 9, 2011 - 6:47amThis Comment
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