OTRS/CP and www.faaas.org

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A condensed version extracted from the FAAS page:

Really, if they don't hate people with Asperger Syndrome, like they claim then why do they publish an article where they put Asperger Syndrome and sociopathy in the same sentence? It makes me nauseous.

@zenden, I think you're couragious wanting to talk about this with your family!
Good for you, when my father died we had still never had found out why or what was going on with him.

Right, for a bit of history on this, the idea was originally coined as the term "Mirror Syndrome" by Karen Rodman of FAAAS as a concept that apparently, an NT merely living with someone with Asperger Syndrome causes mental health problems in the NT. After autism self-advocates objected to the idea, the name was changed to the Cassandra Phenomenon and then was later developed into a full "disorder" called CADD or (Cassandra Affective Deprivation Disorder) by Maxine Aston. The trouble is, Maxine Aston has never published a single peer-reviewed article on this so-called "disorder" and it has only been referenced in her books. Just like in all other fields of science, new ideas in psychology and psychiatry have to be peer-reviewed in order for it to be accepted and this wasn't. It later developed to the point where there were even suggestions of using this made-up disorder to discriminate against AS people in matrimonial and custody law. There was a danger that AS people could be deprived of custody of their children in any event of divorce simply due to a diagnosis of AS and not by weighing the parenting abilities of each parent due to the so-called CADD, even though it was never proven to be a clinical disorder. There was even a matrimonial law article written by family lawyer, Sheila Jennings Linehan, that suggested that in the event of abuse and domestic violence, the perpetrator must always be assumed to be the partner with AS, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. You can imagine how autism self-advocates felt about that, so the whole thing boiled over in 2009 when ASAN launched a campaign against FAAAS and ASPIA over the CADD concept. Fortunately ASPIA responded fairly quickly and they were taken off the target list of the campaign but they continued it against FAAAS until Tony Attwood himself wrote his reply saying that he doesn't believe that parents should be deprived of custody simply due to a diagnosis of AS that the abilities of both parents should be assessed. After this campaign was over, the CADD concept then morphed into OTRS concept, as it's called by FAAAS which is really just the same thing but with a change of name while Masxine Aston changed the name to AfDD (Affective Deprivation Disorder), now defined as a "relational disorder" but unfortunately is still not a concept that is peer-reviewed. So yes, OTRS is still exactly the same thing as CADD.



It's not about how you identify yourself. The fact is that there's an article on the FAAAS website that tries advocate for the inclusion of OTRS in the DSM V. The problem is, it cannot be included in the DSM until it is recognised by the psychiatric community and it cannot be recognised by the psychiatric community until the idea is peer-reviewed. The only references you'll ever get on OTRS and CADD is in popular books, either written by FAAAS or by Maxine Aston. The easiest way to recognise pseudoscience is when the ideas get published in popular level books before they get published in peer-reviewed journals.

Actually, it's not him taking it personally. That exact quote, word for word, is from an article on "theneurotypical" site that you linked to earlier.

I don't need anyone to tell me about my relationships, especially a couple of arrogant and probably short-sighted NTs who believe that they can generalize about everyone on the spectrum.

You forgot to explain what this is even about. Some people won't follow random, unexplained links because it could be spam/trolling.

Amen to that. Who do they think they are? And isn't sociopathy meant to describe not only someone who defies societal norms but who also has a twisted sense of right or wrong compared to "normal" people? Isn't a sociopath someone who works the system to his/her advantage without having any sense of his/her actions leading to adverse or damaging consequences?


I would think that a good number if not most people on the spectrum would not meet the classic definition of sociopathy: http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

I found the listed sociopathic attributes of "glibness and superficial charm" to be most amusing, if applied to most HFA people. Most of us on the spectrum really struggle to function in social situations just to do what's necessary to live, and we're lucky to function out in the world without getting ripped off, or worse. Some of us obsess with the thought of hurting or offending someone simply because we know we aren't always perceptive to subtle non-verbal cues.

Yeah, comparing most people with ASDs to sociopaths is not only inaccurate, it's insulting.

Have you all also read the English articles at: http://www.aspergerpartner.com for a slightly different point of view than that delivered by FAAAS? The PDFs I viewed seem to give a much more thoughtful and moderated approach.

Interesting. I find in the Danish pages a translation of the "bottom line" piece from the Neurotypical site:
http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... rev=search
The English original is here:
http://www.theneurotypical.com/the_bottom_line.html
Which includes the points:
"You will be a caregiver only.
You will be living with someone who has only themselves as a focus in their lives and not their partner.
give it up before you get involved. Trouble is: there is not enough truthful information out there to warn you about the condition in advance."

Maybe the rest is more moderate.

And I am sure it can be very difficult being in a relationship with a person with autism and I don't mean to deny the experiences these people report. I just wish they would not generalize so extensively.

Assuming ORTS exists (and why shouldn't it?), living with an Asperger Spouse isn't the sole and exclusive cause of such a syndrome and there's also a possibility that living with an AS spouse isn't an ongoing trauma.

As I have said before and as I will say again, if people with AS continue to deny that there's autism can effect the quality of the relationship (and why shouldn't it? it's a relationship disorder) then there's no way to mitigate it or find compensatory methods of sustaining the relationship to a mutually satisfactory level.

Maybe there's some black and white thinking here....and a bit of mind-blindness, too.

I don't agree with a "you'll be a caregiver only" and I don't think that's the experience of most people married to AS spouses over the entire course of their relationship. But there certainly has been a lack of reciprocity in support which I think a lot of NT spouses would concur with. Personally a lot of that FAAS stuff feels VERY resonant to me.

The idea of Ongoing Relationship Trauma shouldn't be a stretch. If people can feel the effects of stress after a traumatic relationship, it only makes sense (and actually has been well documented in peer reviewed journals) that there are stress effects of being in a bad relationship or even a "good" relationship where one is constantly on edge that have wider effects on health and well-being. Assuming ORTS exists (and why shouldn't it?), living with an Asperger Spouse isn't the sole and exclusive cause of such a syndrome and there's also a possibility that living with an AS spouse isn't an ongoing trauma.

As I have said before and as I will say again, if people with AS continue to deny that there's autism can effect the quality of the relationship (and why shouldn't it? it's a relationship disorder) then there's no way to mitigate it or find compensatory methods of sustaining the relationship to a mutually satisfactory level.

The problem with the OTRS/CADD concept is not that it claims that AS can be the cause of problems in the relationship, it's that it only talks about the effects on the NT partner and thus tends to put all the blame on the AS partner while ignoring the NT's own contribution to the relationship. There's no recognition anywhere that trying to live up to (sometimes unrealistic) expectations of a partner while at the same time not having the foggiest idea what your partner really wants from you can also be stressful. The only difference between that stress and the stress experienced by the NT is that, to an extent, the AS person has had lifetime of it from living in world populated by 99% of NT's to such an extent that it's become normalised by the time they even get a chance to have a relationship. In fact, that's why they learn to mimic being NT in order to be successful in NT society. It's tiring and can lead to burnout.

No one should deny the experiences and emotions of these suffering NT spouses and partners, and it's fine to explain the relationship between particular expressions of autism and these problems, but to go on to suggest that all NT/AS relationships are like this is just wrong. It doesn't help the suffering person. It doesn't help the relationship and it isn't true. Nor is it remotely ethical to ascribe the negative consequences of all sorts of co-morbidities in autistic people to their autism.