French Psychoanalysts, Unedited, Uncensored, Unhinged

Meanwhile, back in France, the psychoanalysis wars are raging.

As I’ve been posting, the issue is autism. It has been played out in a court in Lille over the question how fairly documentary filmmaker Sophie Robert edited the filmed opinions of certain psychoanalysts.

Three of the psychoanalysts who were interviewed for the documentary on autism sued Robert for damages because they felt that her editing made them look like complete fools.

They insisted that the film be censored, and, for now, they have won in the court.

The question at issue was: do psychoanalysts believe that autism is an infantile psychosis caused by bad mothering?

Today, scientists who know anything about autism have demonstrated that it is a neurological impairment.

The psychoanalysts attacked Robert because they said that her editing made it look as though they were blaming the mothers of autistic children.

As I mentioned at the time, taking the matter to court and suing a filmmaker was an act of monumental stupidity.

Declaring war against an army of mothers was even more stupid.

But, hey, they are psychoanalysts and they believe that they possess superior intelligence and wisdom.

Now, in the ultimate indignity, the newsmagazine L’Express, the most widely circulating and influential newsmagazine in France, has posted an unedited outtake from Robert’s interviews.

In it Robert is questioning psychoanalyst Esther Solano-Suarez off camera about her views on autism. In particular, they are discussing the opinions she has not wanted to divulge in public.

In the clip she states very clearly that she believes autism is caused by mothers and that these mothers do not want their autistic children to get better.

The magazine offers the raw footage and a transcript. I am linking both the original French and the English translation.

When all is said and done, it’s yet another public relations calamity for the dimwitted band of French psychoanalysts. It shows them at their reactionary worst.

If I may attempt to read their minds, I imagine that they thought it would be easy to bully an independent filmmaker working on a micro budget.

Bullying the most important French newsmagazine is not going to be quite so easy.

Doubtless, when they sued for improper editing the psychoanalysts had not imagined that they were inviting the press to expose their unedited remarks.

If they ever lift their eyes from the letter of the Lacanian text, they should contemplate the old saying: Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.