Posted by alexandra_k on January 26, 2014, at 17:09:44
In reply to Re: Attachment Theory? » alexandra_k, posted by Twinleaf on January 26, 2014, at 16:06:43
so...
people like me are all f*ck*d up and need to work with a very expensive psychotherapist (like Schore).
surprise, surprise.
i guess it comes back to... some people thinking that the presence of individuals on the autistic spectrum goes a fairly long way in... undermining the legitimacy of attachment theory. or, perhaps in significantly reducing the class of individuals whom it applies to (i haven't heard anybody particularly advocate for the latter, but that is the way i'd go on that).
and people who are... different... people who don't find other people making happy puppy noises at them to be particularly soothing... people who find that other people are attention grabby and fairly generally mostly upsetting *however well intentioned they may be*. are... messed up. according to attachment theory.
us other individuals... could return the favor. could wonder why there is so much under-diagnosed williams syndrome about. why it is that people are so clingy and needy and why it is that they need someone else to do this and that for them. why they can't do it themself. why they couldn't ALWAYS do it themself. why they didn't figure out that flapping or spinning or thinking very hard on things was a very effective self soothing strategy. why do they have to interfere with *other people* all the time??
or... one could just conclude that there are different ways of being.
i shouldn't even get started on this...
it surprised me to hear it coming from schore. i guess i always thought of him as... a destigmatising force. for something like borderline personality perhaps he was. to talk about trauma. to put the problem a little more in the environment than something intrinsically wrong with the individual. and if you play his little attachment game of seeking expensive psychotherapy for a therapist to play happy puppy games with you then all is well. but if you want something different... if you don't find that kind of therapy helpful... then... well... then there is something wrong with you, oh yeah.
ugh.
i wonder what is going on with the willimans syndrome kids mirror neurones... i wonder if that area is more highly developed?
i kind of think the human brain... is a bit like a rug. with creases and folds and bumps here and there. people are fond of... pointing at subsets and going 'all f*ck*d up and broken bad bad bad!' but there is lots of variation... london cabdrivers have increased hypothalmus due to their needing to internalise road maps of london... differences... what we do with it changes it...
we like to go 'people CAN'T do this and that task because of their brain'
(yeah - i can't internalise a road map of london because my hypothalmus isn't big enough - that is backwards!!!!!)we like to go 'people are broken because this area is too big / too small'
(backwards again)our search for stuff in the head... it is like looking at a hand with four fingers... and saying 'i wonder if it is a difference or if something is broken' then going 'i know! lets look and see if there is a neural difference that produces it!' then taking neural difference to prove dysfunction rather than different way of being.
we start with behaviours (that we judge to be bad or wrong). then we seek about for some difference. then we label that difference 'dysfunction'. then we say we know the behaviour is bad or wrong because we found it was caused by a dysfunction. it is circular reasonign.
i've been very influenced most recently by disability rights. the thought that a number of conditions... need to be viewed as differences.. like how people come in different genders. and people come in different races. people ARE different. not better or worse, different. people who are blind have better developed other senses. areas of the brain that are devoted to visual processing in sighted indivdiuals are devoted to processing other thigns in blind individuals. do you get the sense in which they don't simply have a lack... they have something different.
i got a book from the library that was called something like 'the history of mental disorder: when the diagnosis was social. something something to 1980'. they thought it was social primarily. up until about then. that it is starting to be different now. not so mcuh because of advances in biology... but because of advances in disability rights.
there was a mental illness conference at oxford that ended up being... cancelled. there was protest that it was a bunch of white men and there wasn't any representation / there weren't any voices from those who had experience of mental illness.
at the time i was fairly appalled... and thought perhaps i wanted out of the field after all because it had gone too political. and because... it seemed to me to legitimate my not wanting people to know i had experience of mental illness because i never wanted to be in the position of being token person with experience or being taken as representative of people with experience or... wondering if i only got to be where i was because of my experience...
but i'm starting to come around.
simon baron cohen... saying what he does... say it to their faces. meet with temple grandin and explain to her how she lacks empathy. feels different saying it to PERSONS, doesn't it?? or actually... film footage of him saying it to a person who was part of an autism online support network FOR THE NETWORK. honestly... simon baron cohen was the one who came across as lacking in empathy...
and this is why it is important to have those with experience at these conferences and workshops... theorists are less likely to talk themselves up into a pretty little model of how people with autism don't have empathy (and empathy is what makes us human, didn't you know???) when there are people with autism there in the audience. saying 'i hear what you are saying about people like me having no empathy, however...'
the greatest stigmatisation comes from within. comes from viewing 'them' as 'other'.
at my meeting with the doc, the 'it was so great to meet with you' nurse and the medical student... medical student's eyes almost fell out of her head when i said i wanted to do bio-med. and when i started talking about how i was interested in ball throwing (the different ways in which balls can be thrown) partly because of the different kinds of injuries that result (and it occurred to her how much of medicine generally - but of course psychiatry in particular - was obsessed with systematization).
and teh doc was like... of course you could do research... but med...? and she looked dubious... and i was like 'yeah, i hear the point of the interview is to screen out 'people like me''... but of course i should have said:
oh. please can you give me the updated list on approved occupations for me now. with my most recent dx. i just can't keep up... but i'd only like to pursue something that you approve of, you know, as a doctor. with a special insight into my future (prognosis).
i mean... you wouldn't want the world to be turned upside down. autistics to have great verbal skills. schizophrenics to recover. autistics to 'hear what you're saying but disagree'. and so on...
i think this is why all they really have for me now is the name of a consumer group...
but i think: they owe it to me to MAKE SURE that i really do interview well. i mean... it is because of them that i have loss of faith in my ability to present well in interview setting. i think it is the f*ck*ng least they could do.
and i feel very ambivalent indeed... that i guess part of me is taking some sort of consilation?? that i'm going to be really very good at math. oh yes i f*ck*ng well am.
seroiusly though... i am going to be much happier over there. perhaps in engineering...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058503
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20131211/msgs/1059575.html