Autism should not be in the DSM

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Left-handedness often IS associated with abnormal brain development. It's one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the testosterone theory of neuropsychiatric disorders.

And the main point that angers me about this entire thread/discussion is how many people with ASDs who I see say that they just have different brains, not a psychiatric disorder. But I rarely see anyone on here make this same claim for conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I have OCD in addition to AS, so that makes me mentally ill but not anyone who has an ASD alone? This is my whole issue with the DSM-V using the term "neurodevelopmental disorder" to describe ASDs. As a mental health advocate, I find this very offensive and demeaning to all of the psychiatric disorders not being given this label. It makes it seem like an ASD brain is wired differently from birth but a schizophrenic brain is not.

Again, I'm not particularly concerned with supposed "abnormalities" with no unqualified ill effects other than being UNCOMMON.



I don't think there should be a stigma attached at all to being considered mentally-ill, but I simply don't feel HFA fits the bill.

That's the whole point, though. The term "mental illness" should be done away with entirely. When you start saying, "Oh, this condition is a neurodevelopmental disorder, but this one isn't," the stigma will just increase, in my opinion. If something's in the DSM, there is some sort of psychiatric component to it, so it is unfair to say that conditions currently called "disorders starting in childhood" should really be called "neurodevelopmental disorders." The DSM-IV label works well, because it describes how certain conditions always begin in childhood, whereas things like bipolar disorder may start in childhood but tend to start in early adulthood. But bipolar disorder is just as much of a neurodevelopmental disorder as things like Tourette's and ASDs, but none of its neuroscience roots will be blatantly stated.

The entire thread is about this not being necessarily the case.
Why do you feel the stigma surrounding a diagnosis is dependent on the usual age of onset?

If you have a condition early on, people feel that this is the way you are born and is not your fault. Older-onset neuropsych disorders are often seen as the patient's "fault." They could overcome depression if they just "tried." They used to be happy when they were a kid. Blah, blah, blah. Adult neuropsych disorders still harbor an incredible amount of shame to them, but I just don't see this level of shame with things like ADHD and ASDs. For instance, how many feel-good documentaries on TV and talk shows have centered around ASDs? But the only documentaries we see about schizophrenia on TV show how "dangerous" these patients can be. Did you not see the recent 20/20 special on childhood OCD and childhood schizophrenia? It was absolutely sickening. We all are supposed to be inspired by Temple Grandin's youth, but we all are supposed to be horrified by Janie Schofield's youth...

Very interesting points.

So, then:
should psychology, or even the medical field, redefine pathologies on the basis of popular societal stigmas?

As long as any person with a diagnose that is labeled "disorder, illness, syndrome, abnormal" etc is considered perfectly okay to treat badly. Then those words will be loathed.

Societal stigmas has impact. One has to take that into account.

So...yes?
We should avoid diagnosing people with "XYZ", even if they have it, because they'll be stigmatized?

That's fresh.

Diagnose them with asperger variation without those stigmatized and thus wrecked words. And be vary of any entity claiming to know the "right" answers with a huge history of abuse.

Right, because "Asperger's" has no stigma, and the medical field should be subjugated to the popularity or acceptance of this-or-that pathology.



Ignorant plainsmen saw a satellite that resembled cheese-
let's just throw out empiricism!

But experiences can be quite different and while in real life my autism is often called "utmost hf AS" and "mild AS" and "very mild AS" because of how I can present temporarily and because of that I don't appear as if I had anything against modern social activities and people in general, my impairments would be no less severe in a world full of autistic people because I am really impaired when I am by myself too.

I think what makes experiences so different is probably severity (it can't seem to explain all that much however) but also that based on what little about the causes is known so far, it seems feasible that AS or HFA (the same would go for other forms of autism) do not have the same set of causes in all of us and that, somehow connected to this, the course of development of people on the spectrum tend to show many common key points of autism but differ greatly in the details.

Every time I think about that, I can't help but wanting to know more about the causes of/key influences that lead to/are "autism" to help clear this up.

I think it's most likely that there are a number of factors, both genetic, and the environment in the womb, and wherein they coincide, individuals have certain traits and not others, and are more severely versus mildly-affected.

If anything, I think it is exactly the opposite - in the late-onset disorders (excepting extreme cases like schizophrenia), there is more a tendency to see this as largely an extreme variant of the personality (because the whole late-onset disorder thing is more conductive to a dimensional view of the condition), and to an attitud of "it is simply his way of being; everybody has is own personality and we can't be all identical" while in the born-onset conditions there is more a tendency to see the person as if he was intrinsically distinct form the regular humankind (and the neurological model, with its "hard science" pretentions, is more conductive to a categorical view of the condition).

And, in the late-onset conditions, there is more a tendency to think that the problem could be, in part, "society's fault", what, IMO, is more conducive to a more tolerant view (and even to an attitud of "could have happened to anyone"); in contrast, in the born-onset, the problem is considered as intrisically of the individual, what is more conducive to an attitud of "we need better pre-natal testing" (or, like I alread read in a discussion about autism, "people should make tests before they decide to get children").

This statement is simply and utterly ludicrous.

There is no question that I have altered brain chemistry on top of my 'different wiring'. Looking at all the challenges I face, the most obvious culprit is compromised serotonin production. You would think that SSRI's would have some positive effect but by and large they do not.

I don't think you can separate 'mental disorder' from brain structure since it is the altered brain structure that causes the disorder. Disorder being - Chaos, unpredictability and in the metaphysical sense, it is the opposite of law and order. Not disorder as disease.