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Towards a new form of medical work in psychiatry genetics: the case of autism Volume 24, issue 1, Mars 2006

Author
Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, école des Mines de Paris, 60, boulevard Saint-Michel, 75272 Paris Cedex 06, France

This articles draws on ethnographic observations of a series of medical consultations and staffs which gather child psychiatrists and paediatricgeneticists. Its objective is to take over the diagnostic work for adolescents and young adults who had been diagnosed with « autism » in their childhood. The author shows that an original medical work is taking shape. It consists of inquiring about the patient’s body troubles, whose psychiatric versus organic origins are not easy to pin down. Child psychiatrists and paediatric-geneticists are thus forced to question the articulation between biological and psychiatric facts, and the very nature of investigations that should be planned to highligth each patient’s situation. The author’s contention is that this form of medical investigation stands as far from genetic eductionism, as from « bio-psycho-social » relativism.