![]() ![]() Autistic children subjected to ABA are more than twice as likely to report symptoms of PTSD as their other autistic peers. Deviation from this norm is similarly punished and ‘corrected’ with the practice of Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), which seeks to traumatise autistic children into masking their autism. ![]() In a service-based capitalist economy such as our own, a ‘productive’ worker is one who interacts with others in a ‘normal,’ ‘non-autistic’ way. We’ve seen this change in some places as society shifts from an attempt to eradicate queerness into an attempt to subsume it into capitalism through phenomena such as pinkwashing, but this is of course not universally the case.Īs mentioned above, capitalism requires a productive labour force in order to keep making a profit, regardless of whether it’s socially necessary. LGBT adults subjected to conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as their other LGBT peers. We see this in the phenomenon of so-called ‘gay conversion therapy’ - the horrific practice of traumatising queer adolescents into hiding their queerness. In this system, a woman is tied to one man for her entire life - She is often shut out of the formalised economy, making her reliant on a man, and is instead charged with the responsibility of child-rearing.Īny disruption of this monogamous ‘one working man, one child-rearing woman’ dynamic, such as same-sex relationships or trans people’s inherent disruption of the link between gender and reproduction, is punished or ‘corrected’. Business-owners need an increasing number of productive employees (sellers) and customers (buyers) to make more and more profit.īoth of these factors combined to create the patriarchal, nuclear family. But this changed under capitalism as people were pared off into smaller and smaller groups working increasingly specific jobs, in a phenomenon known as the “division of labour.”įurthermore, we are now living in a system which encourages endlessly increasing the production of goods and services for businesses to make a profit, rather than to meet actual human needs, (see “commodity fetishism”). In pre-industrial, hunter-gatherer societies, raising children was a communal act. But why is this the case? The answer has to do with the Medicare system, the patriarchy, and capitalism’s control over our bodies.įirst, let’s talk about transphobia and the patriarchy. To some people this may come as a shock, but if you’re trans or autistic, you’re probably used to having your autonomy denied by doctors, bureaucracies and other bodies that have power over you. That’s what my first psychologist said to me at an appointment I made seeking vital medical care. Chamberlin’s activism for patients’ rights spanned the next 31 years, and evolved with the history of mental health treatment in this country.“I don’t typically prescribe HRT for trans people of your age with autism.” Her seminal book, “On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System,” came out in 1978, and became a manifesto for the movement. The mother of that movement, many people would say, is Judi Chamberlin of Arlington.Ĭhamberlin was hospitalized against her will for depression in 1966, and shocked by how she was treated. And they have won some striking successes in recent years, gaining more input into official policy and creating new jobs for people who, 12-step-style, have recovered from the worst of their illness and now want to help others in crisis. Call them psychiatric patients or consumers or survivors, they are fighting together to gain more control over their treatment, and more say in the mental health system overall. That is the motto of a grass-roots movement that has carried various names over the last generation, but has always revolved around a single principle: self-determination for people diagnosed with mental illness. ![]() Judi’s blog post on her interview is here.Īnd there is an excerpt to her the Boston Globe below: Judi Chamberlin is one of the leaders of the survivor movement and the search for alternatives for psychiatry and her life is being celebrated today in the Boston Globe.
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