No Easy Answers

We’ve interviewed over thirty people now for our podcast, Let’s Talk Neurosense. That has included autistic people, those with ADHD, parents of neurodivergent children, psychologists and psychiatrists, social commentators, psychotherapists and researchers.

I have learnt such a lot through these discussions. But the main thing I have learnt is that there is no unified perspective on neurodivergence and neurodiversity. People have very good reasons for what they think, and many people think different things.

In particular I have learnt:

Some people say that the neurodiversity paradigm involves everyone and should be adopted by all right-thinking people.

Some people feel that the neurodiversity paradigm does not include them and their children, and reference to it by professionals it puts them off.

Some feel passionately that autism is an identity and nothing to do with pathology or impairment. They use the analogy of homosexuality which came out of the diagnostic manuals in 1973.

Some people do not agree that autism is an identity and say it needs to remain a disorder. Some of them prefer person-first language.

Some people feel that it is essential to keep the autism spectrum as one diagnosis.

Others feel that their needs have been lost in the autism spectrum and they want subgroups.

Some feel that overdiagnosis is a serious problem and needs to be addressed. Others feel that missed diagnosis is far more important and our energies should be there.

Some feel that lived experience should be centre-stage of everything we do, and that quantitative science has had its day. They argue that we should be aiming for experience-based, not evidence-based practice.

Others feel that lived experience should be the starting point, but that assertions made from lived experience need to be tested before they are generalised to other people.

Some feel that neurodivergence is a political issue, with autistic and ADHD people representing an oppressed group for whom the world was not designed. They say that disrupting this oppression through challenging knowledge, power and language should be the priority.

Others say that this is critical social justice theory being applied to neurodiversity, and it doesn’t acknowledge or prioritise the needs of those who are the most disabled.

As a psychologist, this is a challenge. It means that we have to resist the urge to reach for simple narratives about neurodivergence and neurodiversity, because the reality is that there is no story that fits for everyone. It means that any training which presents one of these perspectives without placing it in context is missing important information.

What’s the answer? I think it’s more conversations. There are no easy answers here and we need to keep asking difficult questions. So that’s what Dani and I will keep trying to do.

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