A Different Conversation: Psychological Research and the Problem of Self in Autism

Alessandra Fasulo

doi:10.1007/s12124-019-09506-2

Alessandra Fasulo

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-019-09506-2

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Abstract

Observations about peculiarities in the autistic population concerning type and frequency of references to subjective states, and lack of perspective taking, have been on the whole referred to as the paradox of the autistic self, i.e. a co-presence of ego-centeredness and weak self-referentiality (Lombardo & Baron Cohen 2010). Prevalent approaches in autism ascribe these peculiarities to high order disfunctions caused by neurological factors, such as defective self-encoding processes. Two narratives told by an adult man with Asperger during counselling are examined with Conversation Analysis; the analysis identifies features that may lead to descriptions like the paradox of autistic self, but also reveals competences related to perspective-taking and narrative construction. Drawing on Bruner’s narrative theory, as well on recent interactional research on autism and the psychology of self, it is suggested that a relatively limited practice with narrative co-construction might be at the origin of the peculiarities observed. A socio-developmental approach to the understanding of autism not only can provide explanations compatible with first and second person accounts of life with autism, but can also open new paths for researching ways of self-construction that are less reliant on social interaction. The article finally challenges assumptions in psychological research about the ability of humans to access their internal states, and discusses how such assumptions can deter understanding of atypical populations.

Highlights

The expression ‘paradox of the autistic self’ (Lombardo and Baron Cohen 2010) was coined to summarise findings from experimental studies according to which peopleIntegr Psych Behav (2019) 53:611–631 with autism are at the same time egocentric, i.e. predominantly self-interested and unable to consider the perspective of others, and with a weak self-referentiality, i.e. with scarce ability to access and express their own cognitions and emotions
Method of Analysis Conversation Analysis (CA) is a discipline born in sociology for the understanding of social interaction (Sacks et al 1974), and is broadly multidisciplinary (Sidnell and Stivers 2012)
Conversation Analysis was used in this study to examine in detail two narratives of a person with autism during counselling, selected because they could illustrate how perceptions of weak self-referentiality and of ego-centredness in autistic people could arise

Summary

Introduction

The expression ‘paradox of the autistic self’ (Lombardo and Baron Cohen 2010) was coined to summarise findings from experimental studies according to which peopleIntegr Psych Behav (2019) 53:611–631 with autism are at the same time egocentric, i.e. predominantly self-interested and unable to consider the perspective of others, and with a weak self-referentiality, i.e. with scarce ability to access and express their own cognitions and emotions. A large proportion of those studies, as common for autism research, were conducted with children or young people as participants, because autism tends to be considered a developmental disorder, but ego-centredness and weak self-referentiality - as well as difficulties with narrative discourse – have been associated to autism without specification of age. These descriptions, are hard to reconcile with other sources of evidence, for example the abundance and quality of autobiographical material produced by autistic authors: for people supposedly uninterested in others, who have difficulties with narrating and low access to their interiority, this is no obvious endeavour. Jerome Bruner’s work, to which this special issue is dedicated, will guide the exploration of the problem of the self in autism

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