Contiguity and the Genesis of Autistic Experience: What Psychoanalysis Contributes to Phenomenology

Background While contemporary phenomenologists have highlighted the central role of sensory differences in autism, such differences have rarely been phenomenologically interrogated in their own right. The psychoanalytic approach to autism offers an underexplored resource for addressing this gap. Focusing on Thomas Ogden's concept of contiguity, this paper investigates how autistic sensory experience may be fundamentally structured through a "touch-like" mode of relating to self and world. Summary Drawing on Ogden's suggestion that autism is characterized by contiguity as a norm for the experience of self and world, we argue that contiguity presents as a mode of generating sensory experience in autism across a broad range of phenomena commonly grouped under the heading of sensory differences. Illustrating this point through an integrative reading of autistic autobiographical writings, we emphasize how autistic sensory experiences and behaviors may often serve to manage a felt porousness of bodily boundaries. As we show, this does not render autism pathological but accounts for autistic experience in terms of an accentuation of an indispensable dimension of human experience. In conclusion, we briefly discuss how Ogden's psychoanalytic theorization may pave the way for a genetic phenomenology of autism. Key points We argue that Ogden's concept of contiguity allows for a radical rearticulation of autistic experience in terms of a felt permeability to the world and others rather than an increased detachment from them. In doing so, we highlight the value of bringing psychoanalysis into dialogue with phenomenology for interdisciplinary autism research.