Library Talk: Autisms
Darian Leader in conversation with Leon S. Brenner
What do we mean when we speak of autism, and what is obscured when diverse experiences are brought under a single diagnostic name? In Autisms (Penguin, 2026), Darian Leader draws on clinical experience, research and accounts by autistic people to examine the history of autism and the different ways it has been understood. His book considers the tensions between autism as a disorder, an identity and a form of human diversity, and their implications for understanding autistic lives. Book information.
In this Library Talk, Darian Leader will join Dr. Leon S. Brenner to discuss his book and its significance for contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to autism. Why speak of “autisms” in the plural? How can psychoanalysis attend to autistic experiences without reducing them to deficits? And how might listening to autistic people change our assumptions about communication, relationships and therapeutic support? The conversation will explore these questions and open the discussion to the audience.
Students and lecturers of the IPU, clinicians and other interested guests are welcome to attend.
The Lecturer
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and the College of Psychoanalysts–UK. His many books include The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression, What Is Madness?, Strictly Bipolar, Why Can’t We Sleep? and Is It Ever Just Sex?. His latest book is Autisms (Penguin, 2026). Biography source.
