In l’École de la Cause freudienne (ECF)
By Ligia Gorini
In 2025, the French policy on autism and neurodevelopmental disorders (TND: autism, Dys, ADHD, TDI) focused on:
- Widespread early detection: examinations at 9 months and 6 years throughout the territory, mobilization of pediatricians, PMI and general practitioners.
- Development of school systems: continuation of the opening and strengthening of Autism Nursery Education Units (UEMA) and Autism Elementary Education Units (UEEA), support for trained teachers and ASD systems, despite territorial disparities.
- Structuring of the medico-social sector: gradual implementation of the SERAFIN-PH reform, adaptation of funding according to pathways and supervision / standardization of practices.
- Support for families: maintenance of funding for specialized interventions, with better readability of the routes.
- Research – MARIANNE program: national child and family monitoring cohort to evaluate and coordinate TND interventions at the territorial level.
News:
In November 2025, an amendment to the draft law on the financing of Social Security (France, 2026) proposed to eliminate the reimbursement of care based on psychoanalysis or analytical inspiration. The ECF immediately mobilized by organizing a widely attended forum, denouncing an attack on the freedom of choice of families and practitioners. Several learned societies and professional associations have also expressed their opposition. The amendment was eventually withdrawn during the parliamentary review.
At the same time, the bill on mental health expert centres was discussed. Intended to formalize these specialized structures, it has been challenged by most of the associations of child psychiatry and unions of psychologists, who denounce the risk of two-speed psychiatry and the divide between specialized assessment and local care. Regarding autism, the expansion of the number of diagnostic evaluation platforms is on the agenda, while the resources allocated to care remain insufficient.
On February 12, 2026, the High Authority for Health (HAS) published new recommendations for autism: psychoanalysis, previously considered a non-consensual approach, is now reclassified as ‘not recommended’. France thus becomes the only country in the world to prohibit the psychoanalytical approach in the support of young autistic people.
ECF: Lacanian action has been unfolding in a sustained and committed manner since November 2025, through the takeover of Lacan Quotidien, and Studio Lacan broadcasts intended to enlighten and nourish the debate. A column co-authored by Eve Miller Rose appeared in Libération7 on March 4, 2026. After the publication of the HAS recommendations, a second forum was organized on 12 March, bringing together about thirty speakers. The fight for the defense of psychoanalysis continues.
The Center for Study and Research on Autism (CERA):
Management rotation in July 2025 (2025 2027).
CERA mornings continue to generate strong public interest.
The theme for the year 2025-2026 is: Words of autistic people. Be taught by the testimonies.
You can consult the complete program of teachings 2025-2026 via the following link: https://events.causefreudienne.org/img/cms/CERA%2025-26/Programme%20CERA%2025-26.pdf
The magazine Quarto 141 published the text of Éric Laurent’s intervention of June 14, 2025, Retour sur la forclusion du S1.
In the Escuela Lacaniana de Psicoanálisis (ELP)
By Jesús Sebastián
In Spain, the ELP’s “Observatorio sobre políticas psi” has remained attentive to issues concerning autism at school and state level. One of the issues that the Observatory initiated last year was the follow-up to the initiative promoted by the General Council of Official Colleges of Physicians and the General Council of Psychology, requesting the Ministry of Health of the Government of Spain “an urgent regulation of the use of psychotherapeutic interventions, as well as their advertising, limited to the health sector and their exercise by regulated professions in medicine, clinical psychology and general health psychology, also certifying the proper training of health professionals who practice it”8. We know that, for the moment, this initiative has not received any response from the Spanish government.
One of the tasks that has occupied the Observatory throughout 2025 has been the translation into Spanish of the book La Difference autistique, by Jean-Claude Maleval and its publication in the GRAMA publishing house. The support of Jean-Claude Maleval and Alejandra Glaze, director of the publishing house Grama, greatly facilitated the launch of the project. The ELP’s Observatory on Spanish-speaking policies took charge of carrying out the work in which we invited the members of the Spanish-speaking Diagonal Translation Office of the New Cereda Network from Argentina, Colombia and Spain, and several bilingual colleagues from the ECF, to participate. The book came out in November last year.
Of the activities carried out by DIAGONAL HISPANOHABLANTE NUEVA RED CEREDA, during the year 2025, we highlight those that, directly or indirectly, have dealt with issues concerning autism:
– Study work and preparation for the XXIII Study Day “The anguished child and his objects”, held on February 28, 2026 in Barcelona. Invited by Omaira Meseguer
– In addition, two Diagonal Meetings have been held online, on 10 October and 28 November, with the participation of Vilma Coccoz and Valeria Sommer-Dupont, on the theme proposed by Daniel Roy (The child and objects).
Also in the context of the different communities of the ELP, the different groups of the New Cereda Network have carried out activities, of which we review those whose topics concern autism:
“The violence: between the symptom and the passage to the act. How to do with urgency?“. Cereda Barcelona 13 de enero, 24 de febrero
Workshops Let’s talk “Institutionalized children“.
Cereda A Coruña 28 January, 25 February, 1 April, 20 May, 21 October and 9 December
Workshops Let’s talk “Current diagnoses What does psychoanalysis say?”
Cereda A Coruña 1 and 8 February, 15 and 18 March, 19 and 22 April, 17 and 27 May, 1 November, 10 December. The subjective constitution: Case Roberto. 5 December.
Joint meeting of the workshops: “Current diagnoses” and “Institutional children.” Cereda A Coruña 7 June
Reading workshop on “Clinic of excess” by Domenico Cosenza. Cereda Málaga, 4 and 25 March, 3 April.
“The invention of the child in the face of the invasion of pleasure“. 6 March: Cereda, Alicante.
“Dream, fantasy and delirium: the “addiction” to screens and parallel worlds. A new war between parents and children.” Cereda Barcelona. 10 March: 7 April
“How to clothe the real when the ghost does not operate?”. 20 de marzo: Cereda Alicante.
“The children and their encounter with joy” Cereda Almería: March 25
“Clinic of the failures of the ghost.” Cereda Málaga: May 19
“The child and his objects“:
Cereda Valencia, DHH-NRC EINDA: Presentation of the 2025-26 course, September 16. Questions about the text by Daniel Roy “Children and their objects“: 21 October.
Cereda Málaga. Presentation of the course 29 September, 17 November; Children and their objects. “Materiality and Moterialism “: 15 December.
Cereda A Coruña: 2 October, The Roberto Case: 27 November.
Cereda Zaragoza: Encuentros Diagonal. 1o Encuentro: Inauguration of the cycle. October 4 (Elizabeth Escayola); October 10: “What the children teach us about the object” (Vilma Coccoz); “The children and their objects“: December 13:
Cereda Madrid, Alice and her riddles. ” The object en M. Klein y Winnicott“. 11 de noviembre; “The object in its imaginary dimension a-a “: 9 de diciembre;
Cereda País Vasco. “Children and their objects “: 12 de noviembre.
Cereda Sevilla. “Psychoanalysis and institutions. Children and their objects“: 11 de diciembre
Presentation of the book “Quiet word ” by Elizabeth Escayola. Meeting with other figures. Cereda Valencia, EINDA with BOLV Valencia and TEAdir CV: 26 September. In Zaragoza it was presented as an activity of the Library of Lacanian Orientation of the Community of Aragon of the ELP in collaboration with the DHH-NRC in Aragon.
The WORKSHOP OF STUDIES ON PRACTIQUE À PLUSIEURS 2025, of the Association TEAdir in Catalonia (ASSOCIATION OF PARENTS, MOTHERS AND RELATIVES OF PEOPLE WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER), organized a work program on the topic PSYCHOSIS AND AUTISM. THE SOCIAL BOND IS THE SYMPTOM. They set out their work program as follows
They set out their work from an indication by Jacques-Alain Miller in the “Conversation of Arcachon,” where he asks, about the horizon to which an institution that practices among several points points: “Where do your inventions come from? And what does the syntagma-plural mean when it comes to how real the subjects, in psychosis and autism, are confronted?”
And they propose: “An institution guided by the teaching of Lacan can be proposed as an architecture, as a structure. She promotes both the places and the links, as well as extending some possible circuits. Thus, of the subject’s passage through the institution, would it be tied to a subbing of the social bond or an insertion in the discourse?”
With the following work programme: THEMATIC AXES
Series / Circuits
Structure / Construction
Places / Links
Insertion in the symptom: Partenaire-symptom / Becoming partner of the subject
Substitution of the social bond / Insertion in the discourse
Also this year, in April, the Association TEAdir-Catalonia released number 9 of its magazine L’Atelier with the title A practice of the impossible, among several.
From the ELP’s Observatory on Public Policies, we closely follow the consequences of the change in approach that recently, as early as 2026, has been carried out by the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS), in France, regarding autism treatments: psychoanalysis, previously considered as an unconsensual approach, is now reclassified as “not recommended” as reported by Ligia Gorini in her writing. The ECF has reacted by mobilizing a broad and important debate in the fight for the defense of psychoanalysis against this aggression. This is an issue that concerns us and should keep us alert.
In the New Lacanian School (NLS)
By Marina Frangiadaki
Institutions hosting autistic subjects within different frameworks by members of the NLS and members of the NLS groups:
ASREEP-NLS (Swiss)
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV). Lausanne, Suisse
Day centre CHUV.
The reception is not exclusive to autistic subjects but their number is increasing. Several structures are currently in place:
-A small specialised school and a therapeutic centre (CTJE) with 18 places of which 80-90% of children suffer from autism as well as a larger school.
-A Therapeutic Centre (CPT) with 54 places, of which one third of children aged 6 to 12 years old have autism. It is a specialised school associated with a care centre.
-A crisis day hospital and short stay assessment (CITE), a partial reception that also receives autistic subjects of preschool and school age for, among other things, diagnostic evaluation and therapeutic follow-up.
3 ASREEP-NLS members, psychiatrists and psychologists are part of the team in these structures. The CHUV also serves as a training space for younger colleagues (university department).
Responsibles: Dr Olga Sidiropoulou, child psychiatrist, associate physician, member of the Asreep – NLS, olga.oidiropoulou@chuv.ch
Dr Mathilde Holvoet, child psychiatrist, head of clinic, member of the Asreep-NLS, mathilde.holvoet@chuv.ch
Frédéric Pacaud, psychologist at the CPT, member of the NLS, frederic.pacaud@chuv.ch
Centre Chablaisien de Psychiatrie et Pédopsychiatrie (CCPP). Aigle, Suisse
CCPP was created by members of the NLS and members of the ASREEP-NLS. It welcomes, among others, children, adolescents and adults affected by autism.
8 Colleagues are involved in the cabinet and are members of ASREEP and/or NLS.
Responsibles: Dr René Raggenbass, psychiatrist, member of the NLS, rene.raggenbass@hin.ch
Dominique Rudaz, psychologist, member of ASREEP – NLS, dominique.rudaz@hin.ch
Marie Trémelot, psychologist, member of ASREEP – NLS marie.tremelot@fsp-hin.ch
l’Institut Insight Discourse. Lausanne et Genève, Suisse
The institute is specialised in psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, offering integrative support. The team is multidisciplinary. It includes psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, nurses, social workers and educators. In this context, the institute offers services for children, adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders, among other psychopathologies.
Responsible: Silvia Geller, psychologist, member of NLS sg@silviageller.ch
GIEP-NLS (Israel)
PART Tel Aviv, Israël
The unit’s name is PART, which stands for Psychosis, Autism, Research and Treatment. PART is the result of a collaboration between the Dor-a Clinical Section in Tel Aviv and the hospital. It is both a clinical unit for patients and a place where clinicians analytically oriented interested in institutional work can complete a two-year formation.
A collaboration with Le Courtil has been established.
PART clinicians are all in analysis. They are not members of GIEP but participate in the activities of GIEP and the Clinical Section: Dorit Loew Goldberg, Elizabeth Tamir, Lihi Goldman, Orly Parente, Ronit Asaban.
Training in the Unit includes clinical case presentations, which take place under the auspices of the Dor-a Clinical Seminar.
https://dor-a-lacan.com/?page_id=252
The PART unit was established as part of an outpatient clinic called “Keshet” (Hebrew: rainbow) at Sheba Hospital. The population at the “Keshet” is comprised of adults who have been diagnosed with autism. The unit receives patients from the Shahar clinic for young people after a first psychotic crisis
Responsible: Liat Schalit (PhD), psychologist, member of NLS, Director of the PART Unit, liatschalit@gmail.com
ICLO-NLS (Ireland)
Space2be. Naas, Ireland
Space2be is a therapeutic service for children and adolescents with severe social difficulties. It receives children and adolescents who have a diagnosis of autism, mental disorders or disability. The team works with the pratique à plusieurs. A significant clinical work with parents is conducted.
Supervision: Space2be has an Advisory Board (AC) proposed by Daniel Roy in 2023. The members of the Council are: Neus Carbonell (representing NLS), Iván Ruiz (representing TEAdir), Sheila Power (representing ICLO-NLS) and Bruno de Halleux (representing Antenna 110). Former members: Ève Miller-Rose (representative of the Freudian Field), Yves Vanderveken (representing Le Courtil). The CC meets on average twice a year. The team does weekly supervisions with a member of the NLS and the AMP.
Monthly working groups are organized to read and translate articles on autism. Clinical meetings are organized with the participation of AMP members as extimes.
The Space2be team: There are three members of the ICLO-NLS: Cecilia Saviotti (founder, therapeutic director and clinician), Nefeli Papadaki (therapeutic coordinator and clinician), Mercedes Sanchez Granel (clinician). Clinicians in training and friends of ICLO-NLS participate as volunteers.
The permanent team has eight members who are all in analysis with a member of the PGA. A work exchange with TEAdir is planned this year. The Ministry of Children, Disability and Equality has granted funding to organize holiday camps for the children of Space2be.
Responsible: Cecilia Saviotti, psychologist, therapeutic director, member of the ICLO -NLS ceciliasaviotti@gmail.com
Bulgarian Lacanian Psychoanalysis Society (SBPL)
Association “Child and Space” Sofia,
The association ‘Enfant et Espace’ manages nine social services in Sofia and Ruse, including four residential institutions and five day-care centres. These services welcome children and adolescents with autism, disabilities, severe mental disorders, different forms of psychological suffering and difficulties in social connection. The teams use for their therapeutic work psychoanalytical tools oriented by the teaching of Jacques Lacan and Jacques-Alain Miller.
The therapeutic team is composed of Blaga Banova, Maria Kuzmanova, Anna Ancheva and Anette Marinova (members of BSLP).
One of the six services – the Centre for Integration and Social Rehabilitation (day centre) ” Hedgehogs ” in Sofia is directed by Blaga Banova, psychologist.
The supervision of the team in Ruse is ensured by Dr. Biliana Mechkunova, child psychiatrist, member of the NLS and Milena Popova, psychologist, member of SBPL
Responsible: Vessela Banova, clinical psychologist, therapeutic director, member of the NLS. vbanova@gmail.com
Mental Health Centre for children and adolescents. Ruse, Bulgaria
The Mental Health Centre (CSM) for children and adolescents is an ambulatory child psychiatric service located in Ruse. Lacanian orientation is implemented by the clinical work of Bilyana Mechkunova and Milena Popova in consultations and short-term interventions with children, adolescents and parents. The CSM maintains close working relationships with the Centre d’intégration et de réhabilitation sociale sharing the same premises.
Responsible: Bilyana Mechkunova, child psychiatrist, member of the NLS. bmechkunova@gmail.com
Social institutions in which the Lacanian orientation is introduced by the supervision of members of the NLS and BSLP:
Day centre for autistic children in Gabrovo – supervised by Dessislava Ivanova, psychologist, member of the NLS, tzveta33@abv.bg
Residential institutions for children and youth with disabilities in Kazanlak and Kyustendil – supervised by Raya Vencislavova, psychologist, member of the OPPS, rayadmtrv@gmail.com
Day centre for autistic children in Varna – supervision by Vessela Banova, member of the NLS, vbanova@gmail.com
Social center for rehabilitation and reintegration that takes care of autistic children in Varna. Supervision provided by Vessela Banova and Anna Ancheva / psychologist, member of the SBPL
Day center for children and teenagers with disabilities The sunflowers welcomes autistic patients. Supervision provided by Vessela Banova
Social center for rehabilitation and reintegration in Veliko. Supervision provided by Vessela Banova
Day center for autistic children in Gabrovo . Supervision provided by Dessislava Ivanova, psychologist, member of the NLS,
Help Center managed by the association Institute of Social Activities in Sofia. Supervision provided by Anguelina Daskalova, psychologist, member of the SBPL.
Hellenic Society of the NLS (SH-NLS), Greece
Department of Psychiatry for Adolescents and Young People at the General Hospital of Athens ” G. GENNIMATAS ” Athens, Greece
Day hospital and outpatient consultations: Reception of adolescents and young people up to the age of 23, psychotic and autistic.
Responsible: Dr Epaminondas Theodoridis, psychiatrist, Head of Service, member of the NLS, etheodor@otenet.gr
Multipurpose Mental Health Nursing Unit of Attica ‘Dafni’, Athens, Greece. Special boarding school for adults with severe autism and/or mental retardation (11 people). Responsible: Eleni Molari, psychiatrist, member of the NLS
Borromean Knot Society (SNB), Greece
Reception center for psychotic and autistic adults. Athens, Greece. Maria Spanou, psychologist, head of the Center, member of the SNB.
Marina Frangiadaki, psychologist, member of the NLS, she oversees the team frangiadaki@icloud.com
Special school for psychotic and autistic children. Crete, Greece. Ioanna Verigaki, psychologist, member of the NLS verigaki@yahoo.gr
Lacanian Compass, USA
Thomas Svolos, psychiatrist, member of the NLS. Interventions at the medical center of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska which welcomes autistic patients. tsvolos@outlook.com
Albania-Initiative
Qendra Komunitare Multidisiplinare (Multidisciplinary Community Centre) Tirana, Albania. Day centre for psychotic and autistic children. Colleague Practitioner: Sonilda Barjamaj, psychologist (former intern at Courtil), member of the Albania Initiative, sonildabarjamaj11@gmail.com
In the Scuola Lacaniana di Psicoanalisi (SLP)
By Mateo De Lorenzo
In 2018, I was invited to organize the work of a team from a small “historical” association in Rome -Ciampacavallo- that deals with intellectual and behavioral disabilities, particularly those with severe psychotic and autistic subjects, expelled from all “traditional” centers; these are cases of chronic and “intractable” young people and adults.
The condition I posed was to use the psychoanalytic orientation of Freud and Lacan and in particular the contributions of the Pratique en équipe and the Pratique à plusieurs.
The Association has formally authorized this orientation since 2018, adopting it.
Within a few months there was a rapid succession of events that allowed me to found CasaCiampa, a second day center, which was accredited by the Lazio Region and contracted by Rome Capital and whose official founding documents refer to the Freudian Field and applied psychoanalysis. Therefore, the “official methodology”, approved by the Lazio Region and Rome Capital, is the Pratique à plusieurs.
This is a unique case in Italy.
Since 2019 I have been president of the Association. Over the years we have won numerous public calls and we changed the way we practice, orienting ourselves with psychoanalysis.
Ciampacavallo has more than 1,200 members and regularly cares for nearly 700 people with various disabilities, including nearly 400 people with psychosis and/or severe autism.
In 2023, we founded a social cooperative, CiampaCoop, to regularize the contractual situation of operators. Among other things, we won a Call for the Award of another Casa Cantonera of the Lazio Region. In Casa Fontana, after the restoration work, we have founded a training house for autonomous life, to open deinstitutionalized and demedicalized residences of people with autism and intellectual disability, as part of National Law 112/2016 “After Us.”
Ciampacavallo (Association and Cooperative) has grown significantly: today it has a solid budget, three locations (an indoor day center, an outdoor day center, and a semi-autonomous home), several vehicles, numerous workshops, two gyms, a social fairing with various animals, and a large riding stable with 26 horses and ponies.
The team consists of approximately 60 people: psychologists, educators, social workers, agronomists, artisans, and equestrian instructors. Several weekly clinical meetings and monthly supervision meetings are held. The team’s formation is oriented by Freudian Field psychoanalysis and focused on texts by various authors (in particular Di Ciaccia, Baio, Egge, Stevens, De Halleux, Zenoni, Laurent; obviously Freud, Lacan and JA. Miller). We welcome trainees from the various faculties of Psychology in Rome and students from the Freudian Institute in Rome.
The people who attend Ciampacavallo are welcomed – one-by-one – and progressively involved in the daily work which is divided into working groups and clinical ateliers. We regularly organize trips, weekends and stays, as well as cultural, sporting and artistic events.
My position as “at least one” which has kept the helm firm in the direction of the Freudian Camp for this, already great, reality of the Social of Rome has generated important movements towards psychoanalysis: that is, with this desire at stake, the initiation of analytical training of some members of the team has been achieved. Today there are several students of the Freudian Institute in Rome and people in analytical training who work, at my side, in the various ativities and structures of Ciampacavallo. Some of us also participate in the activities of a working group of the Italian network of the Freudian Field BIP2 (Child Unconscious Psychoanalysis and Politics), a network that focuses on the work of the Institut psychanalytique de l’Enfant du Champ freudien.
My role has served and also serves, in extension, to confront the Other Social that now knows and recognizes Ciampacavallo as a “common good” and as oriented by analytical discourse. Ciampacavallo now maintains personal counts of esteem and trust with the Minister of Disability, the Councilors for Social Policies of the Lazio Region and the Municipality of Rome, as well as local figures (political and administrative/operational) from the various Municipalities of the City.
Obviously, regarding my function, in intension, it is about keeping active the four discourses within the institution that, by nature, tends to “close up” and above all keep alive the desire to work with psychoanalysis.
As a public contribution to the Social, Ciampacavallo can argue that we are demonstrating, thanks to the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, a different way of practicing social inclusion; a topic that has been rethought and practiced by us as a condition linked to the one-by-one and based on the subject’s clinic, also – and above all – when “apparently” there is no trace of the subject (for example, when autism is very closed).
For several years I have been coordinating with other colleagues (Manuele Cicuti, Gregorio Di Ciaccia, Emanuele Tacchia, Alberto Tuccio – SLP-Cf members and participants) who direct institutions outside Rome and in Milan, in an inter-institutional work for the Clinical Section of Rome, coordinated and supervised by Antonio Di Ciaccia. This is a monthly study group, each time attended by around a hundred operators, trainees, and students from the Freudian Institute in Rome and Milan. Each institution takes turns presenting a case, which is discussed by the teams with commentary by Antonio Di Ciaccia.
Jesús Sebastián, with the collaboration of Xavier Giner (ELP), Anaëlle Lebovits-Quenehen y Ligia Gorini (ECF), Patricia Bosquin-Caroz y Marina Frangiadaki (NLS), Amelia Barbui y Mateo De Lorenzo (SLP).
