I love it when I read a great article and then go to the author’s website and find a gold mine of other great stuff. I just ordered Resisting Illegitimate Authority. Much needed in this moment. Thank you, Dr. Levine.
I’ve heard that criticism of autism– that the way it’s defined now is too heterogenous for the category to be useful. It makes sense to me that, to find a cause, you would need to break things down as much as possible. Like, even if you don’t know yet what the different causes are for headaches, you can take a bunch of people who say their heads hurt and start to notice differences between them. Some of the people might experience weird visual symptoms associated with their headaches. Others may have pain in their sinuses. Others may tell you their heads only hurt during times of stress or at certain times of the month. Others may have only started getting headaches after a tbi. Etc. But with autism, they’ve moved in the opposite direction and have combined categories such that the whole thing is pretty much meaningless.
Not that I care because I don’t care what causes autism anyway.
“Philosophers Robert Chapman and Havi Carel have shown how autistic people often face a paradox of recognition: if they suffer, they are pathologized; if they thrive, their diagnosis is questioned.”
I think you’re making the assumption that they’re the same or similar from the moment you decide to study them as a group. Even if you say you’re researching “people who feel chronically depressed,” you have to define that somehow. What does “chronically” mean for the purposes of your study? What does “depressed” mean? And isn’t it better if all the researchers define these things in the same way so the studies can build on eachother? Maybe they should create a manual of some sort to make sure they’re on the same page with their definitions/categorizations…
I just listened to an interview of Dr. Gabor Mate about trauma. It was excellent. He has a lot to say about the topic, and I highly recommend listening.
I love it when I read a great article and then go to the author’s website and find a gold mine of other great stuff. I just ordered Resisting Illegitimate Authority. Much needed in this moment. Thank you, Dr. Levine.
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I’ve heard that criticism of autism– that the way it’s defined now is too heterogenous for the category to be useful. It makes sense to me that, to find a cause, you would need to break things down as much as possible. Like, even if you don’t know yet what the different causes are for headaches, you can take a bunch of people who say their heads hurt and start to notice differences between them. Some of the people might experience weird visual symptoms associated with their headaches. Others may have pain in their sinuses. Others may tell you their heads only hurt during times of stress or at certain times of the month. Others may have only started getting headaches after a tbi. Etc. But with autism, they’ve moved in the opposite direction and have combined categories such that the whole thing is pretty much meaningless.
Not that I care because I don’t care what causes autism anyway.
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“Philosophers Robert Chapman and Havi Carel have shown how autistic people often face a paradox of recognition: if they suffer, they are pathologized; if they thrive, their diagnosis is questioned.”
And the latter is a problem… why?
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What’s the difference between a descriptor and a label?
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I think you’re making the assumption that they’re the same or similar from the moment you decide to study them as a group. Even if you say you’re researching “people who feel chronically depressed,” you have to define that somehow. What does “chronically” mean for the purposes of your study? What does “depressed” mean? And isn’t it better if all the researchers define these things in the same way so the studies can build on eachother? Maybe they should create a manual of some sort to make sure they’re on the same page with their definitions/categorizations…
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I just listened to an interview of Dr. Gabor Mate about trauma. It was excellent. He has a lot to say about the topic, and I highly recommend listening.
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