Systemic autism 2019
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My presentation from the Systemic Autism Conference held at the University of Bedford may be of interest to philosophy students as well as psychotherapists.
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Systemic autism 2019
- 1. Learning from Autism: Territory, Affect and Time in Systemic Practice by David Steare This presentation / workshop aims to discuss the critical ideas of Deleuze & Guattari in general and the social work of Fernand Deligny with autism to suggest a theoretical basis for systemic practice with autism. Central to Delignyâs work with children with autism was his mapping their geographical movements and territories. In Deleuze and Guattariâs writings their ideas about affect and time indicate provisional understandings and meanings. There is a widespread idea within the autism community: âWhen you have met one person with autism youâve met ONE person with autism.â There is another widespread idea within the systemic therapy community: âNot- knowing refers to the belief that one person cannot pre-know another person or his or her situation or what is best for them.â Integrating these ideas can be challenging for systemic practitioners.
- 3. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari The Rhizome âThe rhizomeâŠis the free, expansive movement of grass, constantly connecting random and infinite points. (Arboreal) root-tree structures stifle this movement, diminishing its expansiveness and potential. At the same time, underlying rhizomatic movement troubles such seemingly static structures.â Scott Lawley, 2005
- 4. Rhizome example: Turmeric For systemic practitioners see also: Vikki Reynolds (2014) A Solidarity Approach: The Rhizome & Messy Inquiry
- 5. Deleuze & Guattari What is a concept [such as âautismâ]? âConceptsâŠare in themselves rhizomatic, that is to say they are constantly moving, mutating and connecting. The âconceptâ is a âheterogenesisâ rather than a fixed entity. It is something to use and to be made to work, forever emerging in new configurations, terminologies and enunciations.â Scott Lawley, 2005
- 6. Deleuze & Guattari What is âAffectâ? ï conceptions of dynamic and kinetic relations between bodies (often phrased as âspeeds and slownessesâ) ï a capacity for action and novelty (an affirmation of the necessity of chance, rather than a comprehension of necessary relations) ï affects are becomings: to every relation of movement and rest, speed and slownessâŠthere corresponds a degree of power. ï To the relations composing, decomposing, or modifying an individual there correspond intensities that affect it, augmenting or diminishing its power to act⊠ï Affect is the active discharge of emotion, the counterattack, whereas feeling is a displaced, retarded, resisting emotion.
- 8. Deleuze and Guattari Time and Virtuality ï we are trapped in a linear sense of time (a stupid sense of cause and effect â âwhy did this happen to me?â) ï we have the insight to look backwards, but are equally trapped in the perspective of our current state of affairs (âwhat if?â) ï a future (which does not yet have a sense) informs the sense of the past event, depersonalizing its sense in the present; the perspective of events taken by an actor where, because events do not happen to an individual, are ideal (rather than possible) and incessant (without beginning or end). ï Virtuality is the potential for connection at any one ephemeral moment, a point arrived at from past material actions. It is the âopen fieldâ of potential which is ââŠproduced along with and at the same time as the actual in the course of actualization.â Carrier 1998/Lawley 2005
- 9. Fernand Deligny (1913-96) & Janmari 1973 *Fernand Deligny & Autism
- 10. Maps And Wander Lines - Fernand Deligny In 1968, Fernand Deligny created a network for autistic children at Monoblet, in the CĂ©vennes region of France. Social workers were asked to transcribe the childrens movements and gestures, and for ten years, they traced maps of their own journeys and then, on tracing paper, the childrens wander lines were marked, circulating within these territories and gravitating towards activities, presences, objects, or nodes of life. Organised chronologically and by living area, this rather inscrutable book assembles nearly 200 maps of a world existing outside of language. Arranged like a notebook, the maps and their descriptions, based on interviews with their authors, are shown together.
- 11. Deligny suggested that adults draw maps on which they would trace the autistic childâs movements. It was discovered that the children did not venture outside of a certain territory, and that in that space, an âusâ cohered. If we exist in time, they exist in space, and the forms they see belong outside the linear progression of history: water, fire, elemental realities. âDeligny wondered at these childrenâs ineptitude at exploiting others. For those of us caught in usefulness, can we even conceive of an innocence that would extend to ineptitude, not to say welcome it?â
- 12. DELIGNYâS VISIONARY CONTEXT Capitalism, socialism and humanism all carry conflict along with them, which exists as soon as a border is created between something and something else Autistic children are provided with a radical freedom without any therapeutic, pedagogical or political project. There are no lacks, there is only existence. None of the childrenâs doings are considered as intentional acts in view of any functional purpose.
- 13. Deligny: Subject v Object Deligny âis especially attentive to the phonetic ambiguity, in French, between âthatâ [CE] way of seeing and there is seeing the SELF or an OTHER [SE].â Leon Hilton, 2017 âThe human-that-we-are is the product of a long process of domestication.â âDeligny asks âŠto imagine a mode of relation that would be âoutside of functionâ â one that would not bear the traces of a desire to make autistics and others⊠conform to the shape of the âthought-out-projectâ, the neurotypical subject, the human-that-we-areâ Leon Hilton, 2017
- 14. The modern Bhutanese Practice of uselessness Sangay Rinchen is a useless guy. Of course, if you were to read his resume, you would never believe it. Farmer Sangay, as he prefers to be called, is a leader of Bhutanâs movement to be 100% organic by 2020. During the Global Wellbeing and GNH Lab in Bhutan, which he was helping to co-host, he was called away to meet with the Prime Minister. To Sangay, âuselessnessâ is a form of right action. Or better: right non-action. Sangay explains that in moments when he wants to intervene and fix something on his farm, he first steps back, does nothing, and reminds himself that he is just a humble, useless guy. Sometimes, it turns out nothing needs fixing â nature has its own solutions. With his practice of âuselessnessâ, Sangay calls our attention to a tendency, as change makers, to want to be in control. The humility inherent in the practice of uselessness is actually an important step in the cultivation of a positive mental attitude.
- 16. Lines in the Mind, Not in the World Donella Meadows (1941-2001) Lead author of âThe Limits to Growthâ and author of âThinking in Systemsâ etc. The map is not the territory. Even between you and me, even there, the lines are only of our own making. The human mind arose in the universe needing lines, boundaries, distinctions. Here and not there. This and not that. Mine and not yours. Between me and not-me there is surely a line, a clear distinction, or so it seems. But, now that I look, where is that line? Between you and me, now there is a line. No other line feels more certain that that one. Sometimes it seems not a line but a canyon, a yawning empty space, across which I cannot reach. âŠwhen I do pay close attention, very close attention, when I open myself fully to your humanity, your complexity, your reality, then I find, always, under every other feeling and judgement and emotion, that I love you. Sustainability Institute 1987
Editor's Notes
- So here is a presentation based not on my current welfare rights advocacy work with SEND parents and carers but on my attending the New Directions Systemic Practices seminar at the Tavistock Clinic last November. There was in particular a presentation by the Argentinian psychotherapist Maria Esther Cavagnis that inspired me to research more about the work of Fernand Deligny in relation to autism.
- So to start the presentation the first phrase shows a famous quote that underpins much systemic practice. However, I would like to consider the phrase âsemantic disturbanceâ. This phrase may be linked to semantic-pragmatic disorder most commonly associated with autism but I believe that âsemantic disturbanceâ is something that is mostly ignored within the talking therapies i.e. our talking can be disturbing rather than therapeutic.
- Deleuze was a philosopher who died in 1955 and Guattari was a psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist who died in 1992. Their collaboration was based on common radical left political beliefs. Guattari developed the concept of âEcosophyâ or ecological philosophy that is apparent in the summary above. The main point of their use of the rhizome is to emphasis tracing multiplicities rather than creating grand philosophical theory or other unifying structures like a psychotherapy approach.
- So this picture show the kind of development of an organism so unlike other plant bulbs, corms, and tubers. Rhizomes tend to develop horizontally just under the soilâs surface rather than other plants who sink their roots deep into the soil. For systemic supervisors here, Vikki Reynoldâs paper in Gail Simonâs edited book on Systemic Inquiry is a published example of how the rhizome can illustrate systemic ideas.
- So if a concept such as autism is rhizomatic, what about concepts such as âsystemicâ, âclinicianâ, âdisabilityâ, âexpertâ or even âpersonâ? Donât such concepts evolve over time? One answer to such a question is to consider conceptual development as a cyclical/circular process such as 1. Thesis; 2. Application; 3. Promotion; 4. Adaptation; and 5. Repeat.
- Deleuze & Guattariâs consideration of affect begins with a quantum physics understanding of affect as energy, different energy frequencies can be considered as kinetic and dynamic relations. Life and living operates at different frequencies, each frequency has a power to manifest a reality that ebbs and flows depending on situation and context. They make an important suggestion that when anger and fear are not acted on, then emotion frequencies change into feeling frequencies, for good or for ill.
- Perhaps the most poignant expression of pain is the pain of childbirth, and I say this as an observer rather than as an agent! The evolution of a human usually takes 9 months and evolves from ecstacy and joy, through discomfort and expectation, to pain and joy. So affect isnât one thing, just like any concept, it evolves, or perhaps the point Deleuze and Guattari were making, it should evolve.
- So having considered any concept as an evolution, we can apply this idea to time. Perhaps our experience of time as a linear process can lead us into illogical âwhyâ questions that fail to recognise causal complexities (complexity theory) and the apparent randomness of events (chaos theory). Alan Watts suggests the ideal rather than the individual position by asking âDo you do it or does it do youâ and Thich Nhat Hanh suggests virtuality in his saying âWe have more possibilities available in each moment than we realise.â
- Beginning in the 1950s Deligny headed a series of collectively run residential programs for children and adolescents with autism and other disabilities who would have otherwise spent their lives institutionalized in psychiatric asylums. They developed novel methods for living and working with young people determined to be âoutside of speechâ. He was particularly influential on Deleuze & Guattari and even today remains apart from Western autism perspectives. The 2007 collection of 16 short essays from the late 1970s, is entitled âThe Arachnean and Other Textsâ. The book title illustrates Delignyâs systemic thinking: ââŠfrom my earliest years I have always had some network to weaveââŠand likening himself to a spider he asks âBut can we say that the spiderâs project is to weave its web? I donât think so. We might as well say the webâs project is to be woven.â
- Published in 2013, six years later than the Arachnean this collection of maps and commentaries shows how Deligny and colleagues observed the young people in their care.
- There appear to me to be two things worth considering. Firstly, how we and others use space, especially in relation to the experience of having oneâs âpersonalâ space âinvadedâ. Secondly, how we and others use lines. Perhaps Delignyâs most significant contribution to human understanding is the âwander lineâ or âlines of driftâ. These lines represent a disturbance in our assumptions about the primacy of speech in human relations and perhaps systemic therapy. But maybe the lines represent more. The philosopher Bertrand Ogilvie suggested that Deligny understood âit is not on the side of autism that one finds wildness, but rather in civilisation and in its most characteristic gesturesâ. Deligny contrasted history with nature and may have influenced Guattariâs ecosophy = natureâs harmony. This harmony he observed in relationships between the young people that appeared devoid of exploitation.
- The first statement appears to be linked to Delignyâs sense of lines, Deleuze & Guattariâs âlines of flightâ and from a family therapy perspective Douglas Flemonâs idea about boundaries that both separate and connect. The second statement describes my systemic position in working with autism. The third statement suggests that in a linear construction of lacks (e.g. of function) we overlook the potential of this process as a circularity that begins with an illusion that constructs us. The fourth statement offers an alternative to the conflict dynamics identified in the first statement.
- Apparently, Deligny uses the French language to create interesting links and understandings of which CE and SE are just one example. The first sentence draws attention to difficulties in assessment, echoing perhaps Francis Baconâs Idols of the Mind e.g. what we now call confirmation bias. The second sentence may echo Freudâs âCivilization and its discontentsâ and suggests that identity is culturally constructed and the person we believe we are may not be the person that we were born to be. The third idea seems to match my own experience of autism in that it may best be represented as a refusal to replace our sense of self by a culturally determined self (cf. Winnicott and Millerâs âfalse selfâ.
- So here is Sangay Rinchen, who it seems to me to be living according to the Tao principle of âWu Weiâ, a principle that can be understood as ânot going against the principle of things; without meddlesome, combative or egotistical effort; no clever tampering; no Monkey-ing aroundâ.
- I believe that systemic practitioners can start off with a neutral or curious mind, but then a not-knowing can get undermined by an approach, method or technique. It seems to me that the great difficulty in systemic practice for all of us is not that we need to remove our lenses, but that we need to refrain from putting them on in the first place. As Lynn Hoffman suggests, we can try to just be with people rather than seeing them, we can develop an art of withness.
- Any questions or comments?