Library / Watch / Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
Argument, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
The myth that autistic people cannot be psychologists persisted inside the profession
In short
At the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a panellist said old myths about empathy and friendship still shaped diagnosis and the way some professionals saw autistic colleagues.
Read it instead, 5 minutesThe transcript
The story
Dr Judy Tang asked the practitioners panel at the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne whether the helping professions were growing more accepting of neurodivergent practitioners or still pushing back. One panellist’s answer was that the profession had carried into its own ranks the myths it applies to clients.
The panellist started with diagnosis. There are still so many myths about being autistic, and about neurodivergence in general, the panellist said, and they still came across professionals who, during the diagnostic process for children, would say “they can’t be autistic because they have empathy or they want to have friends”. These were myths that had been around for a long time, and in the panellist’s account they had persisted into the professional realm, where they were turned on practitioners. Some professionals, the panellist said, would say that a person cannot be a psychologist if they are autistic, because they could not possibly relate to clients or do the things psychologists do.
Sign in to keep reading, listening and watching.
Sign in with your email and everything in the Library is open to you: every story, every talk and every episode. It is free and it always will be. If you can, a donation helps keep it free for everyone.
Sources the story draws on
- The double empathy problem (opens in a new tab), National Autistic Society
- The experiences of autistic doctors: a cross-sectional study (opens in a new tab), Frontiers in Psychiatry
- Qualitative Analysis of the Experiences and Perspectives of Autistic Speech-Language Pathologists (opens in a new tab), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
More from Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
All 29- 5 minutes 39 seconds, captioned Diagnosed as adults, autistic practitioners weighed whether to say it out loud Tamsin Jowett Two psychologists diagnosed as adults and an advocate who came to the field through her son told the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium how they came to the work, and what disclosure risked.
- 6 minutes 11 seconds, captioned Neurodivergent practitioners challenged the idea that autistic people are poor at peopling Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 At the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, neurodivergent practitioners argued that the way they relate to people is a strength in their work, and that the communication problem is often a mismatch.
- 1 minute 48 seconds, captioned Practitioners said the DSM lagged behind what the autistic community already knew Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 At the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a practitioner argued the diagnostic manual limits help, and a panellist from Asperger’s Victoria described what members lost when their diagnosis name went.
-
5 minutes 20 seconds, captioned Neurodiversity affirming practice, and research that asks autistic children what worked Raelene Dundon At the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, practitioners defined affirming practice, linked it to the trauma they see in autistic adults, and called for research that asks children whether therapies helped them. -
2 minutes 38 seconds, captioned Neurotype, culture or disorder, the first symposium’s closing dialogue began with language Kyriakos Gold Asked what autism is, speakers at the close of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne described a brain style and a culture, and split on whether the word disorder should stay. - 2 minutes 20 seconds, captioned A panellist argued autism research had been built through a white, male, cisgender lens Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023 Asked to explain intersectionality at the closing dialogue of the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, a panellist asked who had shaped the field’s understanding of autism, and whose lives it left out.