The autistic mirror in the real: Autism in Lacan’s mirror stage

Abstract

The mirror stage is one of Jacques Lacan’s most well-received metapsychological models in the English-speaking world. In its many renditions Lacan elucidates the different forms of identification that lead to the construction of the Freudian ego. This article utilizes Lacan’s mirror stage to provide a novel perspective on autistic embodiment. It develops an integrative model that accounts for the progression of four distinct forms of autistic identification in the mirror stage; these forms provide the basis for the development of four different clinical trajectories in the treatment of autism. This model is posed as an alternative to the clinical and diagnostic framework associated with the autistic spectrum disorder.

Keywords

autism Lacan mirror stage psychoanalysis theory

Lacan’s mirror stage

The “mirror stage” is one of Jacques Lacan’s most well-received metapsychological models in the English-speaking world. Lacan began developing this model in the 1930s and presented it at the 14th congress of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) in 1936. The edited transcript of this lecture was published in 1949 in Lacan’s collection, Écrits (2006), under the title: “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” (pp. 75–81). Lacan’s paper on the mirror stage was presented at a very early stage in the development of his teaching and, in this sense, is deprived of many of the later theoretical developments presented in his RSI model.¹ Be that as it may, it remains very useful today when engaging Lacan’s earlier understanding of the psyche.

In this paper, Lacan integrated numerous fundamental psychoanalytic notions that concern the prototypical psychic components constituting the Freudian ego. Lacan posed his thesis of the mirror stage at a time when the Anglo-American school of ego psychology had already gained great popularity in psychoanalytic circles. The school of ego psychology distinguishes itself from classical Freudian psychoanalysis by emphasizing the role of the ego in the psychoanalytic treatment (Hartmann, 1958, pp. 3–21). In contrast, Lacan relegates the ego to a secondary role. The ego, in this secondary role, can be described as an imaginary construct that is fabricated in the psyche as a result of the child’s narcissistic investment in their specular image.² In a nutshell, Lacan substantializes Freud’s (1900/1961a) distinction between “secondary processes,” which concern the construction of the ego, and “primary processes,” which concern “the core of our being” (1900/1961a, p. 603). Lacan would come to associate the latter with his notion of the “subject of the unconscious” in relation to which the ego is only a secondary construct that provides an illusory sense of selfhood (Lacan, 2006, p. 347).³

Lacan stresses that the mirror stage takes part in the construction of the ego only insofar as it sets in motion the affective dynamism by which a child identifies with the image of their own body. More specifically, at this point in Lacan’s (2006) teaching, the mirror stage chiefly concerns an early moment in a child’s life when they transition from a helpless state of fragmented corporeality to a state of organized corporeal functioning (pp. 76–77). The mirror stage is presented as a scene in which the child encounters their own reflection in the mirror and—at a certain age between 6 and 18 months—assumes their specular image as the totalized correlate of their body. In agreement with his contemporaries in the Gestalt movement (Guillaume, 1971), Lacan describes this as a jubilant “Aha!” moment in which the child identifies with a specular “imago-Gestalt,” invests it with libido, and internalizes it as a representation of the unified body in the psyche (Lacan, 2006, p. 76). The psychic representation of the unified body is associated by Lacan with Freud’s (1917/1961b) notion of the “ideal ego.” Lacan (2006) describes the ideal ego (termed “ideal-I” in the 1949 paper) as the most “primordial form” of ego construction prior to its functioning in the formation of self-identity and the establishment of intersubjective relations (p. 76). It functions as an imaginary ideal of perfection that masks the fragmented reality of the child’s body. Once the child identifies with the ideal ego, they gain the basic organizing psychic faculties that facilitate motor development and allow them to navigate their body in space. At the time the paper on the mirror stage was published, Lacan uses the term “imaginary” to express the illusion, fascination, and seduction, particularly associated with the relationship between the ego and the specular image. Starting from the early 1950s, the imaginary becomes one of the three registers of the psyche, opposed to the symbolic and the real. At this time, Lacan (2006) calls the “primary” form of identification with the body-image “imaginary identification” (p. 397).

Some critics of Lacan argue that his early rendition of the mirror stage is too determined by the imaginary and neglects the function of the symbolic register of the psyche in the formation of the ego (Nobus, 2018, p. 119). Following the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1949, p. 203), the term “symbolic” already appears in Lacan’s earliest writings and is associated with the set of structured rules that govern social relations, language, and the body. Indeed, in Lacan’s early rendition of the mirror stage, his commentary on the function of the symbolic is scarce, but in subsequent revisions—published in the course of the 1950s—the function of the symbolic register is progressively inserted into the model. The first comprehensive model that integrates the function of the symbolic register in the mirror stage is presented by Lacan in his Seminar I: Freud’s Papers on Technique (1988). In this seminar, Lacan (1988) presents, for the first time, a developed optical schema that he names the “schema of the two mirrors” (p. 139). As Lacan phrases it, this schema provides a “metaphor of an optical nature” (p. 350) that concerns a specific psychic operation known in psychoanalysis as “identification” (p. 347). More specifically, it comes to clarify the nature of two different forms of identification (imaginary and symbolic) and centers on the subject’s relationship with language (Nobus, 2018, p. 120).

The schema of the two mirrors is based on “the experiment of the inverted bouquet,” a well-known optical experiment conducted in the late 1940s by French physician Henri Bouasse. In this experiment, a concave mirror is positioned in front of a table on which stands a vase. Hidden under the table is an upside-down bouquet of flowers. Provided that the spectator focuses their gaze on a certain point above the vase, the image of the bouquet will be reflected in the concave mirror and perceived as though it is actually inside the vase (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Henri Bouasse’s experiment of the inverted bouquet. Altered schema based on Lacan (1988, p. 78).

Lacan augments Bouasse’s experiment by introducing into its schema a second “plane mirror” that is situated in front of the first concave mirror. Similar to the original experiment, the bouquet and the vase are situated in front of this concave mirror but now the bouquet is on top of the table and the vase is hidden underneath (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Simplified schema of the two mirrors. Altered schema based on Lacan (1988, p. 139).

In this rendition of the experiment, the spectator is situated between the two mirrors, facing the plane mirror and with their back to the concave mirror (at point $1 in Figure 2). From this position, the spectator is able to perceive the same illusion as that in the original experiment: the image of a vase containing a bouquet of flowers. However, in this case, the spectator perceives this illusion only indirectly because the image of the vase containing the bouquet of flowers is reflected on the surface of the plane mirror. The optical technicalities of the schema, as elaborated by Lacan (1988), are worth quoting at length:

If one put a [plane] mirror in the middle of the room, while I turn my back on the concave mirror, I would see the image of the vase as clearly as if I were at the end of the room, even though I wouldn’t see it in a direct manner. What am I going to see in the [plane] mirror? Firstly, my own face, there where it isn’t. Secondly, at a point symmetrical to the point where the real image is, I am going to see this real image appear as a virtual image. (pp. 124–125)

In this excerpt, Lacan (1988) makes a clear distinction between what he calls “real” and “virtual” images.⁴ In the study of optics, an image is determined real in so far as it is perceived as being situated in an actual physical space (p. 143). In this sense, real images are said to behave like objects and can be taken as objects (p. 76). As Lacan phrases it, real images can be “inserted into the world of real objects, be accommodated in it at the same time as real objects, even bringing to these real objects an imaginary disposition” (p. 138). This is why, in Bouasse’s original experiment, the image of the inverted bouquet is considered to be real. This occurs because the concave mirror reflects the image of the bouquet as if it is situated in the space directly viewed by the spectator: in the actual vase situated in actual physical space (Lacan, 2017, p. 346).

In the revised two mirror schema, the real image of the vase, reflected in the concave mirror, is not directly perceived by the spectator because their back is turned to it (Lacan, 1988, p. 77). However, the illusion of the inverted bouquet is not abolished, for the spectator can perceive the vase containing the bouquet in the reflection in the plane mirror. In other words, by inserting the plane mirror into the schema, Lacan introduces a surplus virtual space, situated to the right of the plane mirror, in which the “virtual image” of the vase containing the bouquet of flowers can be perceived by the spectator (p. 76).

The schema of the two mirrors is used by Lacan in order to better demonstrate the subject’s identification in the mirror stage. As a result, several of the elements appearing in the schema come to represent psychoanalytic concepts. For example, Lacan argues that the plane mirror represents the function of the symbolic register (Lacan, 2017, p. 351). More specifically, the symbolic register is not associated with the plane mirror itself but with the virtual space to its right (Lacan, 2006, p. 568). He also claims that the bouquet of flowers represents the sexual drives—or “partial” drives (Lacan, 2001, pp. 166–168). In their manifestation in the schema, the partial drives are associated with the child’s helpless state of fragmented corporeality prior to the mirror stage (Lacan, 2006, pp. 566, 859).⁵ Furthermore, the vase, hidden under the table, represents the soma, the body in its function as a container. The real image of the vase, reflected on the surface of the concave mirror, represents the body as a reserve of libido and is associated with the instinct-based corporeal faculties that can be said to orchestrate the effects that some images have on sensory-motor behavior.⁶

By incorporating the relationships between these elements, the schema of the two mirrors illustrates a threefold process. In the first stage, the bouquet of flowers is contained by the real image of the vase that is reflected in the concave mirror. This is the illusion in Bouasse’s original experiment that is not perceived by the spectator in the schema of the two mirrors. In the second stage, the image of the bouquet contained by the vase is reflected on the surface of the plane mirror and perceived by the spectator as being situated in the virtual space to the right of the plane mirror in the schema (at point i’(a) in Figure 2). This image represents the child’s imaginary identification with the ideal ego discussed in the early rendition of the mirror stage. In the third stage, this montage is taken as an ideal blueprint for the construction of the ego on the level of self-identify and intersubjective relations (at point I in Figure 2). The psychic construction of the ego on this secondary level is associated by Lacan with Freud’s notion of the “ego-ideal.”

Lacan sees the ego-ideal as another crucial prototypical aspect of the ego that is established in what he names “symbolic identification” (Lacan, 1988, pp. 125–126). With the schema of the two mirrors, Lacan demonstrates that symbolic ideals take a crucial part in the formation of the ego-ideal and are directly linked to the formation of the ideal ego. Unlike the ideal ego—which represents an idealized image that the subject sees as itself—the ego-ideal represents the symbolic vantage point from which the subject perceives itself as it is seen by others or the vantage point from where the subject gains its position in society (Vanheule, 2011, p. 4). It is only through this vantage point that the two prototypical psychic components of the ego are integrated: an ideal body-image (ideal ego) and a perceived ideal of self-identity (ego-ideal; Lacan, 1991, p. 54).

Dynamic transitions in the mirror stage in psychoanalytic treatment

Lacan stresses that the schema of the two mirrors not only functions as a descriptive model of the psyche but also provides a dynamic tool for psychoanalytic treatment (Lacan, 1988, p. 149; 2006, p. 564). More specifically, he argues that the schema reveals the way in which the relationships between its different elements assemble into different configurations that can be said to represent, among other things, the subjective transformations that the analysand goes through during psychoanalytic treatment (Lacan, 1988, p. 149; 2006, p. 564).

One element that clearly influences the relationships between the different elements in the schema is the position of the spectator (represented by the eye in Figure 2). Lacan stresses that the first configuration of the schema of the two mirrors only materializes when the spectator is positioned in the correct place (Lacan, 1988, p. 87), that is, when they are situated between the concave and the plane mirror, facing the latter and with their back to the former. Depending on the spectator’s position and the angle of their gaze, the image reflected on the surface of the plane mirror would be seen as sharp or broken up, clear or diffused, consistent or incomplete. This disruption of the specular image is indicative of a failure in achieving identification in the mirror stage (Lacan, 1988, p. 140).

Lacan (1988) explicitly relates the position of the spectator in the schema to the position of the subject in relation to reality (pp. 123–124). Moreover, he argues that the position of the spectator represents different modalities of the subject’s structuration—the neurotic subjective position only being the common structural outcome of the mirror stage (p. 80).

Lacan (1988) adds that the relationships between the different elements in the schema also depend “on the inclination of the [plane] mirror” (p. 140). The plane mirror is a central element in the schema of the two mirrors. It is only via the plane mirror that the exchange between reflected images can take place. Therefore, Lacan emphasizes that alterations in its angle can cause the reflections appearing on its surface to drastically change (pp. 140, 150).

In the common unraveling of the subject’s identification in the mirror stage, the inclination of the plane mirror is set. However, Lacan contends that, in analysis, the inclination of the plane mirror can be manipulated by the psychoanalyst when they direct the psychoanalytic treatment. This contention is rooted in Lacan’s insistence that in psychoanalysis, the psychoanalyst must position themself in the place of the (big) Other. The Other, is one of Lacan’s most complex concepts. In contrast to the (small) other—a term that refers to the specular image or the ego—the Other is a term that refers to the radical alterity, or other-ness, essentially associated with the function of language in the psyche. Lacan even goes as far as equating the Other with the symbolic register itself in its particular manifestation for each subject. Thus, the Other is considered to be a locus, outside one’s conscious control: a locus of signifiers that determine one’s psychic reality on a symbolic level that exceeds the one determined by imaginary identification (Lacan, 2006, p. 40).⁷ The positioning of the psychoanalyst in the place of the Other gives rise to an effect on the ego that is directly opposite to the one proposed by ego psychologists. Contrary to their idea of strengthening one’s ego, Lacan sees the work of psychoanalysis as entailing the disruption of the imaginary relationships that provide consistency and wholeness to one’s ego (Lacan, 1988, p. 181–182). In other words, Lacan (1988) argues that the power of psychoanalysis lies in the psychoanalyst directing the analysand to “reintegrate” the effects of their imaginary identifications in the symbolic, thus allowing the articulation of desire in symbolic means (p. 183). These effects are dependent on the distinction between the (small) other and the (big) Other in the course of the treatment (Lacan, 2006, p. 379).

Using the co-ordinates of the schema of the two mirrors, Lacan is able to demonstrate how a change in the inclination of the plane mirror can represent this subjective transformation. He claims that, by taking the position of the Other—represented by the plane mirror in the schema—the psychoanalyst is able to confer on the subject, among other effects, an access to the illusory dimension of imaginary identification (Lacan, 2006, p. 569). More specifically, Lacan (2006) argues that the schema illustrated that by tilting the plane mirror by 90 degrees, the psychoanalyst is able to transition the spectator from their position at $1 on the left-hand side of the schema to position $2 on the right-hand side of the schema (see Figure 3). From position $2, the spectator “directly perceives the inverted vase illusion” (p. 570).

Figure 3.

The rotated mirror configuration of Lacan’s schema of the two mirrors. Altered schema based on Lacan (2006, p. 570).

From this vantage point, the real image of the vase containing the bouquet (at A in Figure 3) and the virtual image of the vase containing the bouquet (at B in Figure 3) are simultaneously perceived by the spectator. As a result, Lacan argues that the ego’s dependence on illusory imaginary ideals—rooted in the assumed completeness of the specular image (ideal ego)—are uncovered and, thus, the mirage is dispelled. This is what Lacan (2006) defines, in the aforementioned excerpt, as the “depersonalization” that is observed in moments of “breakthrough” in analysis (p. 569).

The co-ordinates of the schema of the two mirrors have been implemented by Lacan to address the structure and treatment of neurosis and psychosis (Lacan, 1997, pp. 204, 233, 277; 2014, pp. 49, 133, 277, 330–331). However, the next section will propose that Lacan’s remarks on the mirror stage can be cultivated in the elaboration and treatment of autism. This elaboration will rely on Lacan’s few comments on the subject of autism as well as on the integration of models previously developed by contemporary Lacanian psychoanalysts working in the field of autism research.

The autistic mirror in the real

Setbacks in imaginary identification

Autism was initially introduced into the psychoanalytic discourse in 1910, when Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler borrowed this term from Freud in order to designate a set of unique psychotic symptoms (Bleuler, 1950, p. 63). Following Freud’s death, several notable psychoanalysts took it upon themselves to investigate the unique form of psychosis observed by Bleuler, classifying it as “childhood psychosis.” Autism was differentiated from psychosis and designated as a distinct psychological syndrome in the mid-20th century by two contemporary psychiatrists: Hans Asperger (1991) and Leo Kanner (1943). Since then, while some contemporary Lacanian scholars and psychoanalysts disregard this structural distinction (Mannoni, 2008), several others have contended that autism should be regarded as a singular subjective structure (Brenner, 2020; Lefort & Lefort, 2003; Maleval, 2012).

One of the more widely accepted structural characteristics that distinguish autistic subjectivity in the Lacanian field is that, in autism, “there is no Other” (Benoist, 2011; Brenner, 2020; Lachaize-Oehmichen, 2010; Laurent, 2012a; Lefort & Lefort, 2003; Maleval, 2009). The radical break from the Other means that, for autistic subjects, the functioning of the symbolic register is not only disturbed—as it is in the case of psychosis—but is, in fact, utterly abolished.⁸ As mentioned in the previous section, the symbolic order plays a crucial role in establishing the subject’s relation with the social domain, with language and with the body. Therefore, in the absence of the symbolic register, autistic subjects are left without a direct access to these organizing features. This causes many autistic subjects to remain divorced from the symbolic laws that govern social interactions, to have a hard time developing their linguistic skills, and to often experience internal and external stimuli as brutal invasions of an alien and ineffable force in their body (Laurent, 2012b, p. 84).

Several Lacanian psychoanalysts attribute the radical break from the Other to a general setback in the subject’s “primordial identification” (Lefort & Lefort, 2003, pp. 102, 169; Maleval, 2009, pp. 81–83, 215). This setback is also attributed to a failure on the level of the imaginary register, bringing some psychoanalysts to argue that autistic subjects undermine any form of imaginary identification (Laurent, 2012b, p. 39) and, thus, do not achieve the integration of the ideal ego or ego-ideal (Dolto, 1984, p. 242). Correspondingly, Rosine and Robert Lefort, credited as the pioneers of the contemporary Lacanian approach to autism, argue that in autism there is no “Other of the image” (Lefort & Lefort, 2003, p. 14). When arguing so, the Leforts implicate the Other of the image as the locus in which the specular image is inscribed in the mirror stage (Lefort & Lefort, 1994, p. 36). The lack of access to imaginary identification brings some Lacanian psychoanalysts to the conclusion that autistic subjects do not reach the mirror stage. In this sense, they contend that the model of the mirror stage is not useful for the elaboration of the autistic subjective structure and its dynamics (Laurent, 2012b, p. 85; Lefort & Lefort, 2003, p. 35; Maleval, 2009, p. 292; Sakellariou, 2015; Villard, 2010).

However, the aforementioned setbacks in the subject’s identification do not necessarily dictate the abandonment of the mirror stage model for autism. After all, it was Lacan who emphasized the “pertinence” of the mirror stage when addressing one of Rosine Lefort’s case studies that, in hindsight, was determined to be a case of autism (Lacan, 1988, p. 104).⁹ In the next section, I will propose an original perspective through which the schema of the two mirrors can be implemented in the explication of autism.

The mirror in the real

Recall that, in the schema of the two mirrors, the plane mirror is directly associated with the function of the Other in the psyche (Lacan, 2017, p. 351). Therefore, if we take into account that there is no Other in autism, it can then be concluded that, for autistic subjects, the function of the plane mirror must be critically restricted (Sakellariou, 2015, p. 29).

However, the restriction of the plane mirror does not necessarily imply that it is radically abolished from the schema. In Seminar I, Lacan attributes two distinct functions to the plane mirror: a reflective function and a transparent function. The latter enables “real objects. . . [to] pass via the mirror, and through it. . . [and be viewed] in the same place as imaginary objects” thus to be incorporated into psychic reality (Lacan, 1988, p. 141). Correspondingly, I suggest that, in autism, it is the reflective function of the plane mirror that is radically abolished, while the transparent function remains intact. This would amount to imagining the mirror as “unsilvered and thus transparent to. . . [the] gaze” (Lacan, 2006, p. 568) or, in other words, as a “window” or a “sliding glass door” (Lefort, & Lefort, 2003, pp. 34, 60).

The abolishment of the reflective function of the plane mirror necessarily entails the radical absence of the specular image (Lefort & Lefort, 2003, p. 60). This basically means that, for autistic subjects, the specular image is not inherently treated as an image of themselves: they do not identify with this image in the way neurotic subjects do. One example is presented by Rosine Lefort when she reports that, in one of her case studies, an autistic child named Marie-Françoise is faced with her image in the mirror but “does not identify what she sees as her own image. . . [but] searches on the back of the mirror for the objects she sees there” (Lefort & Lefort, 2003, p. 34).

The abolishment of the reflective function also entails the erasure of the virtual space situated to the right of the plane mirror in the schema. This means that, in autism, this virtual space is substituted by a space in which objects can be situated and viewed by the spectator through the transparent glass.

These unique features of the autistic mode of access to the mirror stage are hereby assembled under a term coined by the Leforts: “the mirror in the real” (Lefort & Lefort, 2003, pp. 35, 60, 119, 152). As stated earlier, in the schema of the two mirrors, Lacan uses the term “real” to designate objects or images that are situated in the space perceived by the subject and not in a virtual space behind the mirror. It is only later that Lacan (1991) uses this term in the elaboration of one of the three registers of the psyche. In its early rendition, the real is considered to be a register in which there is no absence (p. 313). In this sense, unlike the symbolic, in which signifiers can be differentiated, the real is utterly undifferentiated, without fissure (p. 97). In the early 1950s, the register of the real emerges as that which is outside of language and “resists symbolization absolutely” (1988, p. 66). Being outside of language, the real is impossible to imagine or integrate into the symbolic world. This rendition of the real was delivered in Lacan’s first seminar, in which the schema of the two mirrors was presented. Accordingly, by associating the mirror stage in autism with the register of the real, the mirror in the real is understood as a mirror that neither reflects images nor functions as the locus of the signifier. It functions as a transparent glass, on the other side of which objects can be perceived in their nonsymbolic, nondifferentiated materiality. Unlike objects that appear as reflections in the mirror—manifested as a symbolic representation of images—these objects, soon to be referred to as “autistic objects,” manifest on the frontier between language and the real (Lacan, 2006, p. 468).¹⁰ The mirror in the real is confined to the left side of the optical schema; the right side, reserved to the virtual images, does not materialize (Maleval, 2009, p. 292). The next section will present four distinct approaches to the mirror that manifest in relation to the autistic mirror in the real.

Four autistic approaches to the mirror

In his book L’autiste et sa voix, Jean-Claude Maleval (2009) devotes a section to a discussion on the use of the mirror in autism (pp. 275–305). Maleval bases himself on the autobiographies of Donna Williams, a famous writer and autism advocate, who published several books on her life as an autistic subject. Autobiographies written by autistic people are often challenged by specialists who argue that they cannot be determined as proper case studies in academic publications. Moreover, some scholars argue that the narratives and stories presented in them are most probably an artifact of the beliefs of their families and peers and therefore hold minimal academic or clinical value (Maleval, 2009, p. 302). It is true that not every autistic person experiences the same difficulties that Williams experiences with the mirror. However, similarly to Freud’s use of the autobiography of Daniel Paul Schreber, Williams’s testimonies provide access to unique experiences for which there is little preexisting descriptive language (Hacking, 2009). In line with Lacan’s (2006) approach to Freud’s use of Schreber’s autobiography, one can argue that in their signifying richness, Williams’s testimonies could demonstrate a structure that will prove to be similar to the autistic process itself (p. 466). In other words, presenting and developing Williams’s autobiographical accounts can demonstrate a structure that could be expanded and associated with particular manifestations of autism seen in the clinic.¹¹

In her autobiographies, Williams describes several unique modes of interaction with the mirror and the different objects that appear in it. In these, Maleval (2009) distinguishes four unique modalities in William’s approach to the mirror (p. 277).

In her first approach to the mirror, Williams (1998) avoids it at all costs. She does not acknowledge the objects reflected in it and experiences a great anxiety when facing it. She reports numerous moments of terror when facing the mirror, one of which even results in her slashing her wrists (pp. 92–93).

In her second approach to the mirror, Williams encounters the first object that appears in it: Carol. Carol is Williams’s “living double,” taking the image of a girl she had previously met in the park (Williams, 1994/2015, pp. 6–19). Williams reports that she feels one with Carol, whom she considers to be a completely separate being who has a life of their own with which she is enmeshed. Williams recounts the many hours she spends in front of the mirror investigating Carol. It is through her engagement with Carol that Williams was able to facilitate her early relationship with her body.

The relationship between Williams and Carol is described by Maleval (2009) as a “transitivistic capture” (capture transitiviste; p. 277). “Transitivism” is a well-known phenomenon that originally refers to a special form of identification often observed in the behavior of young children. A common example would be when a child hits another child on the left side of their face and then touches the right side of their own face and cries in pain. Lacan (2006) describes transitivism as a confusion between two egos that is inherent to imaginary identification (pp. 79, 571). However, because autistic subjects undermine any form of imaginary identification, I suggest that transitive capture cannot be said to entail a confusion between one ego and another. It seems that, rather than identifying with the object seen in the mirror, transitive capture entails the erasure of one’s ego and the total equation with the position of the object: the subject is the object rather than being represented by it. Therefore, based on the work of Hana Segal (1957) and Frances Tustin (1992), I suggest calling it transitive equation.¹² We see this form of equation in Williams’s approach to Carol but also in many other case studies describing the way autistic children incorporate themselves in animated objects like animals, movie characters, and so forth (Grandin et al., 2018; Suskind, 2016). They speak in their voice, mimic their comportment, as though they were one unit, losing their dynamic qualities when they are not in their proximity (Maleval, 2009, p. 281).

Maleval (2009) associates Williams’s third approach to the mirror with the integration of Carol’s image into Williams’s reflection in the mirror. Following this integration, Williams instantiates herself as the main protagonist in the imaginary scene she portrays using objects that now represent her in the mirror (p. 282). For Williams (1998), this transition entailed losing her living doubles (e.g., Carol) but gaining access to other imaginary companions (e.g., her stuffed animals “Travel Dog” and “Orsi Bear”) who are not considered to have a life of their own but who accompany her in the world (p. 42).

Maleval (2009) explains that, in this approach to the mirror, autistic children understand that the object they see in the mirror is their reflection and not a double with a life of its own. They do so on the basis of their intellect. Therefore, their relationship with the body-image is neither immediate nor endowed with affect. As Maleval (2009) notes, “[Williams] does not inhabit her reflection. . . she does not possess her body, which is a ‘horrible’ object that traps her, with which she has no ‘emotional link’ or sense of belonging” (p. 284). In moments that this intellectual connection is disturbed, Williams loses contact with her body and becomes disoriented. For example, Williams (1994/2015) reports that, being overwhelmed by her classmates undressing after a physical education class, they all melted into an unrecognized “mass of black, white and brindle bodies merging into a picture of foreignness” (p. 82). In another example, entailing a more severe disorientation and corporeal fragmentation, Williams (1992) reports that her vision became unstructured, causing her orientation to reverse as if she saw the world through the eyes of her double from the position of her reflection:

The whole world seemed to have turned itself upside down, inside out, and back to front. Everything was like a mirror image of what it had been. . . Instead of driving toward home, I had, as in a mirror, driven away from it. This happened on and off for two days. I became terribly afraid that I had gone mad. (pp. 156–157)

Williams’s fourth approach to the mirror provides her with a deeper sense of connectedness with her body (Maleval, 2009, p. 287). This approach materializes when Williams is almost 30 years old and is triggered by the publication of her first autobiographical book. In this book, Williams portrays the most intimate aspect of her inner emotional world. According to Maleval, by publishing her book, Williams extends the intimate projection of her inner world into an object that is embedded in the social domain. Maleval (2009) states that it is the voluntary separation from this intimate object that allows for a certain subjective division that gives rise to a mode of “symbolic structuring” with far-reaching consequences (p. 272).

After the publication of her book, Williams (1994/2015) decides to free herself from the “addiction of the mirror world” (p. 231). As a result, she progressively reduces her dependence on her doubles and imaginary companions and comes to the point where she no longer denies that they actually originate from within her fantasy world (pp. 120–121).

The separation from her doubles and imaginary companions gives rise to a new bodily experience in front of the mirror. Williams (1994/2015) reports that she feels less cut off from her body; a body that, until that moment, was experienced from a distance, from the other side of the mirror. As a result, she says she is now able to perceive her body from a position other than that of her reflection:

I moved my hand to my arm and fearfully whispered, “I’ve got an arm.” I felt it not on my hand from the outside, as usual, but from the inside. My arm had felt it from the inside. “Arm” was more than a texture; it was an inner sense. . . I was a stranger in the vehicle that carried me about but which was only now telling me it was real, it was mine, and it was part of me. (p. 234)

Williams (1994/2015) reports that the aforementioned changes make her feel freer to take risks and make spontaneous choices that traverse her controlled and regulated autistic world in the aim of seeking a better and more independent life (pp. 290, 297). In William’s own words: “I was moving beyond the mirror to the real world” (p. 149).

Four modes of autistic functioning in the mirror stage

As presented above, Maleval (2009) identifies four different autistic approaches to the mirror in Williams’s autobiographical testimonies. However, he assumes that none of these approaches testify to her actually reaching the mirror stage (p. 292). Contrary to this assumption, this section comes to demonstrate that the mirror stage is in fact a useful model for the explication of Williams’s approaches to the mirror. Moreover, this section will demonstrate that, by using this schema of the two mirrors, Williams’s approaches to the mirror can be generalized and thus illustrate a progression between four distinct modes of autistic functioning. This model is not necessarily linear but does uncover certain relationships between these different modes. By doing so, this section will augment Maleval’s account of the four approaches to the mirror and provide new ground for the development of the psychoanalytic understanding of autism.

The mirror as a never-ending void

Williams’s first approach to the mirror can be associated with a most severe mode of autistic functioning that is widely debated in the works of Bruno Bettelheim (1967), Françoise Dolto (1984), Lefort and Lefort (1994, 2003), Donald Meltzer et al. (1975), and Frances Tustin (1992). It manifests in a state of corporeal confusion in which no degree of separation exists between subject and object (Burgoyne, 2000; Vanier, 2017). As a result, internal and external stimuli are experienced as a constant invasion, and the world as an all-engulfing limitless void, associated by some with an experience of a “black hole” or the “pure presence of death” (Laurent, 2012a, p. 15; 2012b, p. 84; Williams, 1994/2015, p. 69). Dolto (1984) argues that children on this level of functioning do not form a relationship with a more evolved body image in the mirror stage. In contrast, they are inhabited by archaic and primitive body images that are poorly anchored to the body and cause terrible anxiety. In order to surmount this anxiety, autistic children commit acts of extreme violence, self-aggressiveness, and self-mutilation, all with the aim of demarcating a “rim” to their bodies that could bestow on them some degree of separation (Maleval, 2015, pp. 767–768).¹³

This mode of extreme corporeal helplessness is akin to the one Lacan (2006) attributes to the subject prior to the mirror stage (pp. 566, 859). Therefore, it can be originally illustrated, using the co-ordinates of the schema of the two mirrors, by situating the spectator as being engulfed by the bouquet of flowers (see Figure 4). In this way, the bouquet—representing the helpless state of fragmented corporeality prior to the mirror stage—is not contained in any way and invades the spectator’s field of vision from all directions and perspectives, making infinity and proximity to be the same (Laurent, 2012a, p. 18). Accordingly, in this mode of autistic functioning, the mirror either takes the form of a terrifying never-ending void or is completely ignored.

Figure 4.

The mirror as a never-ending void where the spectator is engulfed by the bouquet of flowers representing an invasive experience of the fragmented body. Altered schema based on Lacan (1988, p. 139).

The mirror of transitive equation

Williams’s second approach to the mirror can be said to entail the utilization of the transparent function of the plane mirror in the schema of the two mirrors. As a transparent window, the mirror provides a rudimentary mode of separation from a limited number of objects that can appear behind it and be viewed through it. Through the transparent mirror, the transitive equation between the subject and the objects viewed through the mirror can be established. Correspondingly, in Seminar I, Lacan discusses the case of “Little Dick,” a case that is considered to foreshadow the Lacanian approach to autism and will be further developed by his followers in later years (Brenner, 2020; Laurent, 2012b; Maleval, 2003, 2009).¹⁴ Among other things, Lacan (1988) notes that Little Dick goes through a “unique primary identification” that grants him access to a “fixed” mode of functioning conditioned by a relationship with a limited number of objects (pp. 69–70).

The objects that take part in this unique mode of autistic functioning have been initially investigated by France Tustin—a British psychoanalyst who named them “autistic objects.” Tustin (1972) described the way autistic children stick objects on their bodies, never using them for their objective functions but only for the sensations they provide (p. 115). She argued that they conceive of them as parts of their body and thus gain a sense of self-sufficiency that protects them from the anxiety provoked by their encounters with the precarious outside world. Following Tustin, several Lacanian psychoanalysts have developed a framework that attests to the facilitative nature of such autistic objects (Laurent, 2012b; Maleval, 2009, 2015). They argue that the fascination and total absorption in the interaction with autistic objects provides a sufficient distraction that protects the subject from the disorganized experience of the body and provides them with some sense of stability and control (Maleval, 2009, pp. 105–106, 268). Similarly to Williams’s engagement with Carol, these are moments where autistic subjects lose themselves in their objects, becoming isolated in temporary states of shielded interaction (commonly, repetitive or ritualized patterns of verbal or sensorimotor behavior) that have little space available for other people.

However, the duration of the instances of transitive equations is limited. For they remain dependent on the meticulous maintenance of the rigid relationships autistic subjects form with their objects. This tendency has been already described by Kanner (1943) as “an anxiously obsessive desire for the maintenance of sameness that nobody but the child himself [sic] may disrupt on rare occasions” (p. 245). This tendency renders the reliance on transitive equation to be extremely fragile and prone to collapse, often causing fits of rage and anxiety. Therefore, in order to maintain these rigid relationships, it is essential for the autistic object to be situated in one’s field of vision.¹⁵ It is only its perceived presence (e.g., its appearance or physical touch) that enables its dynamic functions to be utilized by the subject. This phenomenon has been widely acknowledged in the field of autism research, for example in methods of facilitative communication developed by practitioners during the last two decades (Biklen, 1990; Twachtman-Cullen, 2019).

William’s second approach to the mirror demonstrates a distinct use of these objects in an attempt to protect herself from certain setbacks in the formation of the body-image that are particular to autism. The fact that she attempts to protect herself by using the mirror can be illustrated in the schema of the two mirrors in two ways. First, one can argue that the transparent mirror provides the “frame” through which autistic objects could be viewed on the other side of the mirror; namely, appearing in a supplementary locus in which they can be collected and handled.¹⁶ In this sense, the transparent mirror provides a rudimentary degree of separation that engenders an other psychic space in which the subject can equate with the objects appearing in it. Second, by strictly relying on the optical co-ordinates of the schema of the two mirrors, one can draw out the relationship between the different psychic elements that characterize this mode of autistic functioning. In order to illustrate this mode of functioning using the optical schema, the spectator is situated at point $1 facing the plane mirror (see Figure 5). Being disposed to its transparent function, the spectator can view the autistic object on the other side of the mirror, enabling transitive equation. Further exploiting the optical metaphor, it can be argued that as long as the spectator focuses their gaze on the object behind the plane mirror, the bouquet—which represents the helpless state of fragmented corporeality—is diffused. This is why, in this mode of functioning, the subject remains in a painful dependence on the autistic object, only coming to life when equating with it (Maleval, 2009, p. 299). Accordingly, one might say that, in the second approach to the mirror, the subject is either totally invested in the protective object or the subject is at the risk of being invaded by internal and external stimuli (as is the case in the first approach to the mirror).

Figure 5.

The mirror of transitive equation in which the spectator views the autistic object through the transparent mirror, equates with it, and thus diffuses the invasive experience of the fragmented body. Altered schema based on Lacan (1988, p. 139).

The mirror of intellectual integration

In her third approach to the mirror, Williams can be said to develop the “protective” function of her autistic objects into their more complex “dynamic” function. This development can be associated with the transition from the use of the “simple autistic object” to the use of the “complex autistic object” (Brenner, 2020, pp. 245–246; Maleval, 2015, pp. 772–774). The complex autistic object is a more developed and versatile modality of the autistic object. Basically, it is a construct that combines the localized dynamic functions of several autistic objects into a complex apparatus that enables the subject to handle more intricate functions in more complex circumstances. Maleval (2009) adds that it provides a supplementary consistency to the body-image and greatly contributes to the “libidinal animation of the subject” (p. 158). In this sense, the complex autistic object provides a first supplement for the identification with the ideal ego commonly achieved in the mirror stage (pp. 164–166). It is more “dynamic” than the simple autistic object because it is open to change, its characteristics can develop over time, and its functionality can be adapted to different contexts and different situations (Maleval, 2015, p. 772). Moreover, the subject can plug into it at will, like an auxiliary machine, integrating its dynamic properties (Maleval, 2009, p. 170). For example, Bruno Bettelheim (1959) describes the case of an autistic child named Joey who builds an apparatus made of different objects. This apparatus allows him to develop skills such as eating, using the toilet, and even speaking and regulating emotions.

Recall that, in autism, there is no Other and therefore no virtual space behind the mirror. Therefore, the dynamic mode of autistic functioning enabled by the complex autistic object cannot be truly equated with the construction of the body-image described in Lacan’s mirror stage. Accordingly, the integration of the dynamic qualities of the complex autistic object in the body does not entail a direct sense of corporeal possession. That is because, as previously discussed, this integration is based on one’s intellectual comprehension of the parallels between the object and the body and does not entail a vital sense of intimacy or belonging. In other words, it is based on an intellectual process of trial and error, through which the subject learns how to manage certain bodily sensations and engage in certain movements with the help of the complex autistic object. For example, Williams (1994/2015) notes that she devised ways to apprehend the dimensions of her body by calculating it in relation to perceived images of other bodies around her. This is why she reports to always feel short when in the company of short people, or tall when with tall people. Others around her provide her with the co-ordinates with which she can consciously and actively “map” her own body (p. 234).

In order to represent this mode of autistic functioning in the schema of the two mirrors, an augmentation is provided to the first schema. In this augmented schema, the spectator’s position is decentered and transported from $1 to $2 (see Figure 6). At this position, the spectator occupies the space to the right of the mirror. Situated on this side, the spectator faces the transparent mirror and views the complex autistic object through it. From this perspective, the complex autistic object is perceived as being superimposed over the bouquet of flowers. In this sense, the schema illustrates the way in which the dynamic qualities of the complex autistic object are utilized in the containment of the bouquet, which represents the subject’s helpless state of fragmented corporeality. Through the intellectual integration of the complex autistic object as a supplementary body-image, the autistic subject is able to gain more control over their body. As long as the subject remains intellectually engaged in this integration, they can find their place in the world. However, as noted in the previous section, when this intellectual engagement is challenged, the acquired sense of corporeal stability can be lost and the subject is at a risk of suffering from what Williams (1992) describes as “inverted perception” and confused corporeality (p. 156).

Figure 6.

The decentering of the subject in the mirror intellectual integration in which the dynamic qualities of the complex autistic object are integrated in a supplementary body-image. Altered schema based on Lacan (1988, p. 139).

The hollowed-out mirror

Williams’s fourth approach to the mirror involves both the fabrication of a unique autistic narcissistic object as well as a spontaneous act through which the dynamic qualities of the object are invested in a domain that exceeds her control (Maleval, 2009, pp. 287, 297).

The fabrication of the autistic narcissistic object entails a unique form of projection in which some of the subject’s dynamic qualities are extracted from their inner world in a nontraumatic way and invested in an object.¹⁷ A subject can fabricate a multiplicity of narcissistic objects, each incorporating a different aspect of their inner world. For example, we see that Williams (1992) spontaneously chooses to portray her intimate emotional world by painting on the surface of a mirror that was hanging in her living room:

I painted long grass in the foreground and vines of wild, multicolored roses around the boundary. I lay in front of it, so that I appeared to be lying in long grass in the mirror world. . . Both of us sat together in the beautiful, wild, tall, animated grass. Together, surrounded by roses, there was only I and me in the mirror. (p. 204)

However, the most significant narcissistic objects that Williams produces are her books. In them, she is able to find a new way to express the same creative tendency encapsulated in her paintings but, this time, this expression also has value in the social domain.

The second crucial aspect of the fourth approach to the mirror is an act through which the surplus that the narcissistic object embodies is separated from the subject’s control and invested in the social domain. In Williams’s case, this is the publication of her two first books: Nobody Nowhere (1992) and Somebody Somewhere (1994/2015). The fabrication of and voluntary separation from the narcissistic object comes to engender a lack, a certain subjective division, that is intimately associated with the subject but is permanently put out of the subject’s control without causing an internal crisis.¹⁸ Like the tall grass, vines, and colorful roses surrounding Williams’s reflection, it marks the place of an imagined ideal that extends and demarcates the empty place of the subject from the outside. With recourse to the separation from the narcissistic object, the subject is able to supplement what would usually be achieved in the mirror stage in terms of the identification with the ego-ideal. This is also accompanied by a certain appropriation of one’s emotions and a development of the subject’s libidinal animation that is independent of the autistic object—simple or complex. However, this is a supplement and not a substitute for the identification in the mirror stage, as the loss of the narcissistic object is not signified in the Other, which is the locus of signifiers, but in the “synthetic Other,” which is the locus of the sign (Brenner, 2020, p. 217).

This mode of autistic functioning can be illustrated using the schema of the two mirrors by a second decentering of the position of the spectator. This time, following their decentering in the third approach to the mirror, the spectator returns to their place at $1 (see Figure 7). Followed by this change in subjective position, the dynamic surplus embodied by the autistic narcissistic object is, by way of a symbolic act, transposed to the plane mirror itself. Taking advantage of the optical metaphor, one can associate this act with a carving out of the narcissistic object on the surface of the plane mirror. The example of Williams is quite fortunate for, in her case, her intimate emotional world was sketched on the surface of an actual mirror. The act through which the narcissistic object is invested in the social domain is illustrated in the schema by tilting the plane mirror by 180 degrees. In this way, the narcissistic object is left on the other side of the mirror, open to the world but hidden from the subject. Its lack, made present on the clear side of the mirror now facing the spectator, leaves a place for the imaginary projection of the subject’s imaginary ideals, which provides a lasting supplement for the identification in the mirror stage. One can imagine transparent lines of alignment that would have been there in case the mirror would also have its (symbolic) reflective function. The more the subject is able to harness their newly acquired level of structuring in order to better align this ideal, the more resilient this supplement is in organizing their corporeal experience and its integration into the social domain.

Figure 7.

The hollowed-out mirror is tilted by 180 degrees and the sketching of the autistic narcissistic object on the surface of the plane mirror faces the other side. Altered schema based on Lacan (1988, p. 139).

Conclusion: A new autism spectrum

Autism is commonly described today by practitioners and scholars using terms derived from the framework of the autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) presented in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This framework provides the measures to assess the different manifestations of autism on the basis of a quantitative accumulation of behavioral traits. Nevertheless, this framework does not provide metapsychological categories that could enable a qualitative distinction between the diverse modes of autistic functioning. As an alternative to this framework, I suggest that autism practitioners and scholars develop these distinctions by relying on the model proposed in this article. This model is composed of four distinct levels of autistic functioning that have to do with the supplementary construction of the ego in the subject’s approach to the mirror and their relationship with three modalities of the autistic object. By distinguishing these levels using the co-ordinates of Lacan’s mirror stage, this model can prove itself to be useful in the extrapolation of qualitatively distinct metapsychological categories that explain the behavior of autistic subjects and allow for the development of varied approaches for its facilitation. Just as Lacan suggested, these categories revolve around the function of the plane mirror. However, going beyond the original mirror stage model, here the plane mirror is addressed as: (1) a never-ending void, (2) a protective frame that enables the transitive equation with the simple autistic object, (3) a gateway to the intellectual integration of the complex autistic object, and (4) the bedrock for an inscription of a loss in the synthetic Other using the autistic narcissistic object. Compiling the conclusions derived in this paper, I hereby summarize them in a newly proposed Lacanian approach to the differential understanding of autism in the following schema (see Figure 8):

Figure 8.

The autism spectrum of the mirror in the real.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

Leon S. Brenner is now affiliated with University of Potsdam.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Leon S. Brenner

Notes

Author biography

Leon S. Brenner is a scholar and lecturer at the International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin. He specializes in the fields of Lacanian psychoanalysis, contemporary French philosophy, and autism research. His latest book on the subject of the psychoanalysis of autism is called The Autistic Subject: On the Threshold of Language (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), where he presents a novel account of autistic subjectivity from a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective.

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