This sounds true for autistic folks as well...

...or not. How can an interpsychic structure be “personal”? Did the author mean intrapsychic?

It would be instructive to ask a number of autism-spectrum people (who were able to answer) what they thought their “self” was. If the response was of the form, “I do this, I like that,” then others could know that “self” also. The transparency of some autistic folks - “what you see is what you get” - is often spoken of. So if the text quote is true, then the outside observers do not know the “self” of the autistic person. But if the person is so transparent, how could they not know?

All this seems, at least, to argue against the view of autism as a poverty of (whatever attribute).

(alternative response to the quote:)
...if even *that* person knows it, that is. The very notion could be unexplored territory - or maybe territory that autism-spectrum folks are often strongly discouraged from spending any time living in. Our selves are deemed to be defective.

Last revised: June 20, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
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