Autistic Disturbances in Skin Containment: The Dermic Drive as a Psychoanalytic Concept in the Study of Autism

Esther Bick is known as a pioneer in the elaboration of the psychoanalytic concept of the skin. Bick theorizes that the "primal skin function" is fundamental in the early formation and integration of the human psyche and suggests that it should determine most interpretations of psychopathology. This article investigates the particular association of disturbances in the skin function with the onset of autism. A new approach to the skin function is put in motion using terms borrowed from the mathematical field of topology developed by Bernard Burgoyne. Through this interpretation, autism is postulated as originating in disturbances in a particular modality of the skin function that cause psychic representations to operate according to a mode of separation characterizing specific topological spaces. This mathematical perspective explains the complexity and diversity of autistic symptoms in terms of linguistic functionality. Finally, the skin is put forward as a modality of the Freudian drive (Trieb)-the dermic drive-and the hypothesis of the psychic foreclosure of its rim is offered as a defining characteristic of the autistic psychic structure. Esther Bick被称为阐述皮肤的精神分析概念的先驱。Bick的理论是,"最初的皮肤功能"是人类心理早期形成与整合的基础,并指出它应该能决定精神病理学的大多数解释。本文研究了皮肤功能紊乱与自闭症发作的特定关系。借用Bernard Burgoyne开发的拓扑学数学领域的术语,一个皮肤功能的新方法到来了。通过这一解释,自闭症被假定为起源于一种特定的皮肤功能紊乱,其导致心理表征以某种模式运作,其特点是T0和T1拓扑结构的分离强度。这个数学观点解释了在语言功能方面自闭症症状的复杂性和多样性。最后,皮肤被提出作为弗洛伊德驱力的一种形式(Trieb)--皮肤驱力--其边缘的心灵止赎的假设被提了出来,作为自闭症心灵结构的一种定义特征。