Green Jonathan, Shaughnessy Nicola
Division of Psychology and Mental Health, University of Manchester, and Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Manchester, United Kingdom.
School of Arts, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2023 Dec 27;14:1287209. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287209. eCollection 2023.
We are now at a transition point in autism conceptualisation, science, and clinical practise, where phenomenology could play a key role. This paper takes a broad view of the history of phenomenological perspectives on the autism concept and how this has evolved over time, including contemporaneous theory and methods. Early inquiry from a clinical perspective within the tradition of classical continental phenomenology, linked closely to the consideration of schizophrenia, is contrasted with emerging observations of child development and a period in the second half of the twentieth century of scientific inquiry into a behavioural autistic phenotype where there was little or no phenomenological aspect; a phenotype that has determined the recent scientific and clinical conceptualisation of autism within current nosology. We then mark a more recent reawakening of interdisciplinary interest in subjective experience and phenomenological inquiry, which itself coincides with the increasing prominence and salience of the neurodiversity movement, autistic advocacy, and critical autism studies. We review this emerging phenomenological work alongside a contemporaneous clinical phenomenology perspective and representations of autistic experience from within the extensive literature (including life writing) from autistic people themselves; all perspectives that we argue need now be brought into juxtaposition and dialogue as the field moves forward. We argue from this for a future which could build on such accounts at a greater scale, working toward a more co-constructed, systematic, representative, and empirical autistic phenomenology, which would include citizen and participatory science approaches. Success in this would not only mean that autistic experience and subjectivity would be re-integrated back into a shared understanding of the autism concept, but we also argue that there could be the eventual goal of an enhanced descriptive nosology, in which key subjective and phenomenological experiences, discriminating for autism, could be identified alongside current behavioural and developmental descriptors. Such progress could have major benefits, including increased mutual empathy and common language between professionals and the autistic community, the provision of crucial new foci for research through aspects of autistic experience previously neglected, and potential new supportive innovations for healthcare and education. We outline a programme and methodological considerations to this end.
我们正处于自闭症概念化、科学研究和临床实践的转型阶段，现象学在其中可能发挥关键作用。本文广泛审视了现象学视角下自闭症概念的历史及其随时间的演变，包括同时期的理论和方法。早期从经典大陆现象学传统中的临床视角进行的探究，与对精神分裂症的思考紧密相连，这与儿童发展的新观察结果以及二十世纪下半叶对行为自闭症表型的科学探究时期形成对比，在该时期几乎没有或完全没有现象学方面的考量；这种表型决定了当前疾病分类学中自闭症的最新科学和临床概念。然后，我们指出最近跨学科对主观体验和现象学探究的兴趣再度觉醒，这恰好与神经多样性运动、自闭症倡导以及批判性自闭症研究日益突出和显著相契合。我们结合同时期的临床现象学视角以及自闭症患者自身在大量文献（包括生活写作）中对自闭症体验的呈现，对这一新兴的现象学研究进行综述；我们认为，随着该领域的发展，所有这些视角现在都需要并列并展开对话。基于此，我们主张未来可以在更大规模上基于这些描述进行构建，朝着更具共同构建性、系统性、代表性和实证性的自闭症现象学迈进，这将包括公民科学和参与式科学方法。在此方面取得成功不仅意味着自闭症体验和主观性将重新融入对自闭症概念的共同理解中，我们还认为最终目标可能是增强描述性疾病分类学，在其中可以识别出区分自闭症的关键主观和现象学体验，以及当前的行为和发育描述符。这样的进展可能带来重大益处，包括专业人员与自闭症群体之间增强相互同理心和共同语言，通过以前被忽视的自闭症体验方面为研究提供关键的新焦点，以及为医疗保健和教育带来潜在的新支持性创新。为此，我们概述了一个计划和方法学考量。
