ABSTRACT
Lacan had a distinctive conception of the ego. According to him, the psychical apparatus has not one, but two centres: the ego and the subject of the unconscious. If the subject of the unconscious is profoundly articulated in the Symbolic order of language, the ego is, for Lacan, an Imaginary instance that he equates with the specular image of one’s own body. The absence of the infant’s gaze at the mother, which extends to other people and to the psychoanalyst who treats the infant and his/her parents, constitutes one of the principal signs that enable us to make a diagnosis of autism during the first months of life, as the onset of the other symptoms. Such as stereotypical movements and self-destructiveness, may occur only during the second year. Leaving aside the autisms that emerge in connection with the associated pathologies arch, such as “syndromic autism”, the discussion here is of the more classic infantile autism.
