What is The Body Multiple?

In her book The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice (2002), Annemarie Mol studies how diseases — specifically atherosclerosis — are enacted differently in various hospital practices. For example:

• In a pathology lab, the disease is seen in a dissected artery.

• In a diagnostic test, it's seen through a Doppler scan.

• In a consultation room, it’s described through symptoms like leg pain while walking.

Mol argues that the body is not one singular, fixed thing, but multiple — enacted differently depending on context, tools, language, and relationships. But crucially, these versions don’t just reflect different perspectives — they are different realities. The disease is different in each setting. And yet, they are coordinated enough that we still talk about “one disease.”

This is ontology in action — how things are depends on how they're done or enacted.

Why Is This Comforting for Autistic People?

Many autistic people live in tension with rigid, singular narratives about what a person "should" be, how a body "should" behave, or how cognition "should" work. That makes Mol’s theory deeply affirming in several ways:

1. There Is No Single ‘Correct’ Way to Be a Body

Mainstream medicine and psychology often present autism as a deficit — a deviation from the norm. But if bodies and experiences are multiple, then no one version is more “real” or “correct” than another. Your sensory world, your rhythms, your communication style — these aren't malfunctions, just different enactments of being a body.

🔹 Comforting message: My body isn’t wrong — it’s just one of many possible bodies.

2. Experience Is Contextual, Not Absolute

An autistic person might feel fine at home but overwhelmed in a crowded store. Under Mol’s framework, this isn’t inconsistency — it’s multiplicity. You're not “being dramatic” or “inconsistent”; your body is just being enacted differently in different environments.

🔹 Comforting message: My needs aren’t imaginary — they emerge in real contexts.

3. There’s Room for Complexity

Autism is often forced into binary frameworks — verbal/nonverbal, high/low functioning — but Mol’s theory makes space for fuzzy, shifting, overlapping realities. You can struggle with social interaction and be deeply empathetic. You can need routine and crave novelty.

🔹 Comforting message: I don’t have to simplify myself to be understood.

4. Coordination Over Uniformity

Mol doesn’t say multiplicity means chaos. The different versions of the body are coordinated, not collapsed into one “truth.” This suggests we don’t need to “normalise” autistic people — we need systems that can coordinate with their version of reality.

🔹 Comforting message: The world can adapt to me, not just the other way around.

5. Ethics of Care, Not Control

Mol’s theory is deeply embedded in a care ethic — how can different enactments of the body be supported and cared for, not controlled or fixed? This aligns with neurodivergent advocacy that focuses on support, access, and dignity, rather than “cures.”

🔹 Comforting message: I deserve care that meets me where I am, not where others think I should be.

Putting It All Together

For an autistic person, Mol’s body multiple theory opens up a more generous, flexible, and affirming ontology, one where:

• You don’t need to justify your reality.

• Your shifting needs make sense.

• The problem isn’t you — it’s the pressure to conform to a single version of being human.