Asperger Syndrome and Psychotherapy: Understanding Asperger Perspectives

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good
Review: I am the sort of person who puts psychotherapy somewhere between pulling teeth and major surgery on my list of things I feel like doing. This is mainly due to terrible experiences with it. I was sent to psychotherapists who ranged from ineffective to cruel for most of my life. I only bought this book on the strong recommendation of someone who said it was way better than she expected. And she was right.

This book was written by a psychotherapist who used her head when confronted with children she didn't understand. Instead of trying to pigeonhole them into existing categories, she recognized that traditional psychological theory didn't seem to work on them, and that she had to disregard everything she had been taught about conscious and unconscious motivation. These children today would have either been diagnosed with autism or Asperger syndrome.

In describing what she has tried to do for her clients, she says, "It would help if that guide were interested in me and my perspective, and respected it as a valid experience. I would want to find a way to be with others that worked, without trying to become one of them, which I could not do. That is the kind of person I need to be in my relationship with those with Asperger's." It also describes best what she tries to do in the rest of the book.

The book is filled with descriptions of individual clients, as well as what worked and did not work for them. She makes it clear that a lot of personality traits -- willfulness, narcissism, arrogance, and cruelty -- that can easily be ascribed to autistic children, are often not there at all.

The author tries to describe the differences between autistic children and narcissistic children -- "narcissism" is a word that some psychotherapists have used on me at seemingly inexplicable times. This book explains it, and why it's a mistake to apply the word with all its connotations to autistic people. Unfortuantely, one of the examples it uses is less than clear. A boy the author labels "narcissistic" can't understand why an adult would always beat a six-year-old in games, and gets frustrated when she keeps winning. Given how many autistic people have trouble understanding things like time and age as related to skills, I can easily see this happening to an autistic child -- I never understood as a child why adults could draw better than I could, not because I had an inflated opinion of my capabilities, but because I didn't understand time or how age related to skill. I suspect people have thought I had an inflated opinion of myself at times when I just didn't understand certain differences in age and experience, and lacked the cognitive capacity for that understanding even if it were explained. I was twenty years old before I had enough understanding of age and time to see what was meant here, and then only because someone insisted I learn.

The main models the author uses to understand autistic people are theory of mind, weak central coherence, and executive function. It is important to understand that while these theories appear to explain a lot of autistic behavior, and can sometimes be applied appropriately, they are a fairly clumsy attempt to explain autistic cognition, rife with holes in the theories. They are not much better in terms of non-autistic people understanding autistic people, than the theories autistic people come up with to understand non-autistic people. There is a divide here, and we have to cross it somehow, so I understand why the author needs to use these theories as much as I need to use different theories to understand the author. But they are definitely not the end-all and be-all of autistic cognition, and should not be applied to rigidly. (For example, many autistic people have "theory of mind" for other autistic people, but have trouble understanding the thoughts of *non-autistic* people. This implies something more complex at work than a simple deficit in theory of mind.)

A good chunk of this book is dedicated to case histories, interspersed with explanations of the children's behavior. It is careful to note that we don't all do the same things for the same reasons, and the author knows to ask rather than to assume. She also gives tips on how to work with parents and children together, and how to prepare children for the world without turning them into someone else.

All in all, the author does a good job at describing a particular set of autistic children's strengths and difficulties, and what to do about them. While I have quibbles with a few of her ideas (for instance, that it's a good idea for autistic people to get rid of weird-looking behavior just because it looks weird to non-autistic people), I am still probably going to somehow get copies of this book to my childhood counselor and psychiatrist, who both meant well but didn't always know what they were doing. And they couldn't have, really -- they were only applying the theories they knew, and there wasn't a lot of information about autistic people's minds back then.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good
Review: I am the sort of person who puts psychotherapy somewhere between pulling teeth and major surgery on my list of things I feel like doing. This is mainly due to terrible experiences with it. I was sent to psychotherapists who ranged from ineffective to cruel for most of my life. I only bought this book on the strong recommendation of someone who said it was way better than she expected. And she was right.

This book was written by a psychotherapist who used her head when confronted with children she didn't understand. Instead of trying to pigeonhole them into existing categories, she recognized that traditional psychological theory didn't seem to work on them, and that she had to disregard everything she had been taught about conscious and unconscious motivation. These children today would have either been diagnosed with autism or Asperger syndrome.

In describing what she has tried to do for her clients, she says, "It would help if that guide were interested in me and my perspective, and respected it as a valid experience. I would want to find a way to be with others that worked, without trying to become one of them, which I could not do. That is the kind of person I need to be in my relationship with those with Asperger's." It also describes best what she tries to do in the rest of the book.

The book is filled with descriptions of individual clients, as well as what worked and did not work for them. She makes it clear that a lot of personality traits -- willfulness, narcissism, arrogance, and cruelty -- that can easily be ascribed to autistic children, are often not there at all.

The author tries to describe the differences between autistic children and narcissistic children -- "narcissism" is a word that some psychotherapists have used on me at seemingly inexplicable times. This book explains it, and why it's a mistake to apply the word with all its connotations to autistic people. Unfortuantely, one of the examples it uses is less than clear. A boy the author labels "narcissistic" can't understand why an adult would always beat a six-year-old in games, and gets frustrated when she keeps winning. Given how many autistic people have trouble understanding things like time and age as related to skills, I can easily see this happening to an autistic child -- I never understood as a child why adults could draw better than I could, not because I had an inflated opinion of my capabilities, but because I didn't understand time or how age related to skill. I suspect people have thought I had an inflated opinion of myself at times when I just didn't understand certain differences in age and experience, and lacked the cognitive capacity for that understanding even if it were explained. I was twenty years old before I had enough understanding of age and time to see what was meant here, and then only because someone insisted I learn.

The main models the author uses to understand autistic people are theory of mind, weak central coherence, and executive function. It is important to understand that while these theories appear to explain a lot of autistic behavior, and can sometimes be applied appropriately, they are a fairly clumsy attempt to explain autistic cognition, rife with holes in the theories. They are not much better in terms of non-autistic people understanding autistic people, than the theories autistic people come up with to understand non-autistic people. There is a divide here, and we have to cross it somehow, so I understand why the author needs to use these theories as much as I need to use different theories to understand the author. But they are definitely not the end-all and be-all of autistic cognition, and should not be applied to rigidly. (For example, many autistic people have "theory of mind" for other autistic people, but have trouble understanding the thoughts of *non-autistic* people. This implies something more complex at work than a simple deficit in theory of mind.)

A good chunk of this book is dedicated to case histories, interspersed with explanations of the children's behavior. It is careful to note that we don't all do the same things for the same reasons, and the author knows to ask rather than to assume. She also gives tips on how to work with parents and children together, and how to prepare children for the world without turning them into someone else.

All in all, the author does a good job at describing a particular set of autistic children's strengths and difficulties, and what to do about them. While I have quibbles with a few of her ideas (for instance, that it's a good idea for autistic people to get rid of weird-looking behavior just because it looks weird to non-autistic people), I am still probably going to somehow get copies of this book to my childhood counselor and psychiatrist, who both meant well but didn't always know what they were doing. And they couldn't have, really -- they were only applying the theories they knew, and there wasn't a lot of information about autistic people's minds back then.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for parents and professionals
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. I am 24-year-old graduate student and I have Asperger Syndrome. I am also studying to be a counselor and I hope to work with children (and possibly adults) who have AS and their families. This book does an excellent job of explaining some of the complex thought processes that people with AS go through. I even found some new potential explanations for some of my own thoughts and behaviors. I am giving this book to the therapist who works with me and I would recommend it to any professional or parent who wants to understand these very special children and adults better.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for parents and professionals
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. I am 24-year-old graduate student and I have Asperger Syndrome. I am also studying to be a counselor and I hope to work with children (and possibly adults) who have AS and their families. This book does an excellent job of explaining some of the complex thought processes that people with AS go through. I even found some new potential explanations for some of my own thoughts and behaviors. I am giving this book to the therapist who works with me and I would recommend it to any professional or parent who wants to understand these very special children and adults better.

Rating:
Summary: A book by someone who really understands our children
Review: Paula Jacobsen understands our children and in her outstanding book builds a bridge between their perceptions of the world and ours. This book is a must read for therapists, teachers, and family members if we are to interact with compassion and respect and ultimately, through our understanding, foster strong, loving relationships for individuals with Aspergers and NLD.

Rating:
Summary: A book by someone who really understands our children
Review: Paula Jacobsen understands our children and in her outstanding book builds a bridge between their perceptions of the world and ours. This book is a must read for therapists, teachers, and family members if we are to interact with compassion and respect and ultimately, through our understanding, foster strong, loving relationships for individuals with Aspergers and NLD.