Hal to Chuck on autism

CSGnet Archive CSG1993
1

To me, in my theoretical frame, autism is simply a paralyzing fear of
talking about something. For some of us that fear leads to total
expressive paralysis. Recommended treatment: plenty of hugs (or
perhaps light touches which don't smother), plenty
of talking to, and no pressure to respond. The miracle of daring to
express oneself will come of its own accord, if at all, which I take
it to be consistent with Bill P.'s assumptions about control.

I was an only child in a house where a pair of clinicians diagnosed
virtually everyone we met together. As time has gone by, and I've
demystified the categories and looked at human beings underneath them,
and by tapping the part of myself involved in our "disorders," I can
for instance here understand that my own areas of denial are my own
autism, and go from there at autism's companion.

I probably ought to read more humanist psychology, but I'll bet their
message is remarkably like mine. l&p hal

2

[Martin Taylor 931021 10:40]
(Hal Pepinsky 21 Oct 1993 08:05:22)

Hal,

Have you read "Nobody, Nowhere" by Donna Williams? If not, do, if you
can find it in a library or bookstore. It is the autobiography of an
autistic who has great insight into her problem. The reason I mention
it is:

Recommended treatment: plenty of hugs (or
perhaps light touches which don't smother), plenty
of talking to, and no pressure to respond.

The hugs would be disastrous, the light touches helpful, especially on
the arm, which apparently is somewhat depersonalized. The talking to
could go either way, depending on how personal it seemed to be. No
pressure is essential. Donna Williams explains appropriate and inappropriate
approaches to autists, with whom she now works.

I agree with your:

autism is simply a paralyzing fear of
talking about something. For some of us that fear leads to total
expressive paralysis.

Only it goes beyond talking. I read it as an inability to control
perceptions in the real world, starting from a very early age if not
congenital. For real-world perceptual control is substituted control
in an imaginary world, in which the disturbances are manageable.

Donna Williams describes vividly how she would make the world go away
when it became stressful, and even in her twenties with a Master's (I
think) degree in social work, the world will still go away on her, leaving
her with uninterpreted supervivid sensation instead of understood objects.
Relinquishing attempts to control perceptions of the real world was both
deliberate and involuntary in childhood, but I read her as saying that
as an adult it has become only involuntary because she realized that doing
it deliberately never helped her situation. I imagine many autists never
reach that conclusion.

Dealing with other people is specifically difficult for Donna. The written
word is MUCH easier than conversation. In PCT terms I take that to be a
reflection of the greater difficulty in controlling our perceptions of
other people (which, in writing, we do in imagination) as compared to
that of controlling our perceptions of the inanimate world.

Anyway, I can't recommend the book too highly if you have the slightest
interest in autism. Also, I see it as a handbook of PCT, if you know
what you are looking for in it.

(An administrative comment: would it be too much trouble to ask you to
head up your postings with your name and date, like everyone else, and
to use the name-date header of whatever posting you are responding to?
See above for an example--I got the date of your posting off my mail
header, but that may not be what anyone else's mail header shows.)

Martin