The mental hygiene movement and autism

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One can only hope...

The mental hygiene movement hasn't disappeared, it has just gone mainstream, and is now an almost unquestioned part of school life.

It has been incorporated into the "normal" fabric of society, and the rise in "numbers" of AS, ADHD, PDD, and other "disorders/dysfunctions" is one of its effects.
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Last edited by ouinon on 11 Mar 2009, 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

For example, clinical psychologist Bruce Levine wrote in 2001:

So the boy is diagnosed, officially, as suffering from a disorder/dysfunction, ( which will stay on his medical record forever ), and may end up taking drugs/medication for many years to "control" his "condition".

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Maybe what I thought of as "our culture" isn't typical of mainstream society or the Establishment. My experience is that there was a time when I knew of nobody who would have been even suspicious of the idea of mental hygeine, people really did believe in the sane and the sick-in-the-head model, they were scared and ashamed of mental health issues. But these days I don't think I know of anybody in real life who wouldn't be down on "ental hygeine" like a ton of bricks.....most people I know are quite politically aware and cynical about the system. Maybe I should go into a school or two.

I think that's the crux of the matter; how many adults are aware of what is going on in schools? It is not part of most adults' culture.

It is like a ghetto, into which most people over 18 are not allowed to go, except at fixed times, for short times, or as ( paid ? ) assistants after "vetting"/filtering out potentially disruptive/rebellious elements.

It is like a ghetto, out of which a child is not allowed to go, except at fixed times, short times, under escort.

It is where AS, Autism, ADHD, PDD's, etc are "identified", ( like phlogiston, or the "wandering womb" in women ), examined, tested, singled-out, subjected to different treatments, and where children learn what is approved of/acceptable/admired, and what is not.

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Autism is widely considered to be something which can be fairly reliably diagnosed by the age of 5, "pre-school" if not pre-nursery.

But in fact many, even most, diagnoses of AS happen after children enter school.

Out of 918 children born in 1990, diagnosed autistic, only 404 were diagnosed by the age of 5. Another 259 were diagnosed by the time they were 10, and 255 more by the age of 17. ( figures from California DDS files )

Obviously the increased awareness of AS had something to do with this, but the number of children "exposed" as AS/autistic during their school years is still huge; 56% in this case.

And I don't know how many of those diagnosed earlier were at nursery/"pre-school", and therefore submitted to the same sort of standardising pressures in a group which reign in school.

Is anyone familiar with the phenomenon of different treatment depending on whether are in group or alone? eg. Women travelling alone in countries where women are confined to the home etc, receive "honorary man" status, where a couple of women travelling together are seen as women, and "loose" ones at that.

I submit that one of the dangerous, ( perhaps unintended ), aspects of school is that children are collected together by age, already a standardising system, and that in groups like that differences automatically become, ( to the controlling/organising/centralising/assessing gaze of teachers ), abnormalities, which in smaller groups of differing ages, distributed more naturally among the adults of a community, would simply be signs of individuality.

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I wonder if, in fact, the "Mental Hygiene" movement may have been "inspired by" the relatively new schools for "the masses", which confined people with few or no rights, ( under-14's could no longer earn money, because laws at the beginning of the 1900's had made it illegal for anyone under 14 to work ), to small rigidly-organised spaces, under the control of one person.

This situation, in itself, by creating the kind of conditions which exist in laboratories; populations divided by certain criteria, subjected to the same stimuli, and these applied/directed by one person, hour after hour, day after day, may have provoked/induced the "mental hygiene" attitude.

Humans with few or no rights, confined in groups by age, even, for quite a long time, by sex, ... . It sounds like the sort of situation which psychology experiments have found have an "unfortunate" effect on those in power. I think it is difficult to over-estimate the role that school plays in converting difference into disability, disorder, and dysfunction.

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Mind expanding moment

I like the idea of a link. For a start, when school was only for those that could afford it, most kids would have just hung out in their locality each day. Helped their parents in their work (down the mine or in the mill in bad cases).
They talk about disorders going 'under the radar'. ALL of these children would have been under the radar! I also recall reading that it was harder to get your children to go to school when they could see their peers out in the sun playing all day. Non-school children were accused of crime. And in modern times, the 'great and good' crave a link between criminality, mental illness, poverty and low intellect. Very few explore the idea that it is the systems being perpetuated by the great and good that are actually causing the mental illness, poverty. low intellect and ultimately, criminality.

And another angle is that of defining "being able to sit still doing a repetitious, dull task for long periods of time" as being normal, indicative of a 'healthy' child. This would not have emerged until children were all made to do that. I often wonder if the aggression and bullying that goes on in school is the product of 'being caged in', rather than some innate behavioural trait.

The 'unfortunate' effects would be The Behavioural Sink, or The Stanford Prison experiment and probably many others.

Rarely does something emerge in society totally unrelated to anything else. Perhaps it's impossible. Necessity is the mother of invention, we see how much technology is invented to solve the problems left by the previous technology.

It's refreshing to hear such views expressed. Margaret McMillan was expounding the importance of outdoor play in 1930, and for a time was getting results, but there's been a relapse and now there's a new generation of McMillanites who are pushing to get this put right.

http://www.early-education.org.uk/pdf/ltl_book.pdf

I don't say it's the whole answer, or that these people are total angels, but MM's credentials look impressive at least - Labour Party (when it was palpably a socialist party), beaten up by the police for political reasons, a Christian and a supporter of universal suffrage. Quite a heady mix! What would the world be like without such people?

It's not so much that "disorders" would have gone under the radar, as that children's neurological differences were not so efficiently/systematically transformed into disability, disorder or dysfunction, ( by decree of the medical establishment acting in unison with schools ) if they did not go to school.

School reminds me of the "sorting machines" you get in fruit processing factories; apples etc all have to be the same size and shape, to the point that many people think that what makes a good apple is its roundness, shininess, etc, rather than its taste.

It's "odd" that environmentalists are trying to persuade the world of the importance/value of diversity in natural ecosystems at the same time as human social structures are increasingly labelling human neurological difference, or diversity, a disorder/dysfunctional.

I wonder whether there is any link between the difficulty that some/many "different"/diverse people find themselves in, ( how increasingly disabled they are by society this last 100 years ), and the danger, ( or fact ), of extinction which so many animals and plants are suffering from.

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What am I saying? Obviously there is a link, somewhere, between the threats, ( and damage already done ), to ecosystem diversity and to neurodiversity.

Something in the drive towards bigger, better, more productive, creates homogeneity, encourages people to ignore/overlook/reject those plants, animals, and humans that aren't making a profit, that aren't so "easy" to cultivate, which don't thrive in huge fields of one crop.

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Also examined in the book "The Medicalization of Society" by Peter Conrad! See thread about it at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt94866.html

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Should be required reading for every Aspie and every parent. Titled Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why


qft


But of course. Why isn't this seen as normal? [wanting...NEEDING to be out in the sun]....See Gatto link above.


The collusion between medical establishment and schools is something every Aspie needs to get a real good grip on. We need to understand how they tried to damage us. I'm an old Aspie, and I can tell you, the medicalization of education--has become diabolical since I was in school. Schools became a place unfit for children after the advent of ADD and ADHD diagnosis IMHO. That's when home schooling really took off.


qft

Last edited by alba on 01 Apr 2009, 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I must say thanks for all the sources being cited, I shall certainly be tracking down Constructing Autism. I can't say I'm particularly sympathetic to social constructivism but I've yet to read a detailed study of the topic in relation to Autism so I look forward to doing so. I believe Ian Hacking is working a book about social constructivism and autism, I was awaiting that with bated breath.

It would be great if there was a list somewhere on the website of books dealing with autism from a philosophic perpective. Perhaps we should make one.

"If society were to treat any other group of people the way it treats its children, it would be considered a violation of human rights. But for most of the world's children this is the normal expectation from parents, school and the society in which we live. "

"The important freedom at Summerhill is the right to play. All lessons are optional."

The above quotes are taken from the following:

A.S. Neill's Summerhill School

This is a great thread.