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Following the discovery of autism by Kanner and Asperger, psychoanalysts were the first to try to extricate autistic children from segregation and eugenics. Unfortunately, a certain triumphalism, some technical errors and an extreme, unproven psychogeneticism led to a misunderstanding with parents' associations. Exacerbated by inevitable resistance to psychoanalysis and a child theft fantasy, this misunderstanding resulted in some attacks on French child psychiatry. Organized as a sectarian communitarianism that favored purely behaviorist methods, supported by an effective lobbying of the French National Health Authority, these attacks led to a rejection of psychotherapeutic practices developed in France over half a century earlier. This author argues for a work of partnership that respects the suffering and vulnerability of families inevitably subjected to the contagion of autism.