THE AUTISTIC SUBJECT: Psychoanalysis, Clinical Practice, and the Ethics of Listening (Psychoanalysis Through Time)

The Autistic Subject brings together, in a single volume, the most consistent work at the intersection of psychoanalytic clinical practice and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Drawing on more than a decade of direct clinical experience with autistic subjects and their families, William Marcos presents a work that goes beyond diagnostic manuals — without ignoring them.The book traces the history of autism from Kanner and Bettelheim to the DSM-5, critically examines the contemporary inflation of diagnosis and the self-diagnosis phenomenon as an instrument of social victimization, and articulates the perspectives of Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan — particularly through Jean-Claude Maleval — into a rigorous and applicable clinical methodology of its own.The Ismael Case, narrated with literary depth and clinical precision, documents a real clinical encounter conducted outside the consulting room — analyzing incomplete developmental phases, destructive family dynamics, European institutionalization, escalating aggression, and the confirmation of a clinical prediction recorded in a formal report. The case is drawn from the work The Silences of Ismael (Marcos, 2025) and here receives full methodological treatment.For psychoanalysts, psychologists, educators, and families who refuse to reduce the autistic subject to a diagnosis. Read more