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May 11 2023
What is it about ABA that is so harmful to Autistic people?

There are many things within this world that can cause controversy in minority communities. One less discussed in mainstream society, but of significant interest to the Autistic community is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). Nothing sets Autistic Rights activists ready to march into battle quite like the normative violence of behaviourism.

So, what is ABA?

ABA is based on a school of psychological thought known as behaviourism. Behaviourism itself being a social science that uses observable behaviour to investigate psychological values of an organism. Behaviourism is in a lot of things that we interact with. In fact, if you own a dog, you have probably already encountered it.

ABA, then, is an applied version of this science. It uses functional analysis of an individuals behaviour to identify the function of a given behaviour with the intention of identifying target behaviours to be extinguished or reinforced.

This is done through the use of positive reinforcement (for example, rewarding a behaviour) and aversive techniques ranging from planned ignoring to the use of electric shocks. The aim of these techniques is to make an individual conform to societies normative standards of behaviour, which is why it’s relevant to Autistic individuals.

Many people state that Lovaas created it after his work on The Feminine Boy Project (Gay Conversion Therapy), which utilises the same techniques. Technically, this is true, although it would be more accurate to say that Lovaas took a technique that already existed and made it much more sadistic. Behavioural Analysis was, in fact, seen as early as 1947 within the context of animal behaviourism in Arkansas.

Lovaas was famously known for stating that Autistic people looked like humans, but were more akin to something sub-human that needed to be constructed into an acceptable form. It is unsurprising then that much of his work on ABA was informed by the sadistic practice of Gay Conversion Therapy.

Back to the point

History aside, ABA is a harmful practice, and it’s particularly offensive when we consider its use among neurodivergent people.

Our current society is built from the bottom up. The economic policies and cultural practices in many parts of the world are built on a foundation of colonialism. This has led to a prominent neoliberal attitude that individuals should be self-reliant producers of profit that adhere to certain standards of behaviour. These standards can be considered the basis of normativity, although more specifically we need to talk about neuronormativity.

What is so dangerous about neuronormativity is that it requires us to embody our neurology and experience of the world in very specific ways. Any deviation from a perception of ‘normality’ is seen as abberant and in need of correction. It has significant links to other forms of oppression, such as white supremacy and queerphobia.

How does this relate to ABA?

The purpose of ABA is to assimilate an individual into these neuronormative performances of behaviour. It does not take regard to whether this performance is comfortable for the individual, and it takes little account of the damage that the process of forced assimilation can have on a person.

Autistic people are monotropic. We have minds that prefer singular, hyperfocused attention tunnels. Our cognitive resources preferentially assign themselves to one thing at a time, building inertia that can make rapid transition between points of focus a traumatic experience.

This presents an issue when we consider that a neuronormative approach to the world is designed for a polytropic mind that can assign its cognitive resources across multiple streams of focus simultaneously without building too much inertia. ABA encourages Autistic people to live polytropically.

Why is this a problem?

Autistic people who are forced to behave and live polytropically are at risk of a phenomenon called monotropic split. This is caused because a monotropic mind can not regulate its attentional resources across multiple streams. Monotropic split can ultimately lead to a range of mental health concerns and even suicidality.

ABA creates this issue for many of the Autistic people who go through it.

This is why I view ABA as a tool of normative violence. It is an aggressive tool of forced assimilation that does not care for the harm it does. Many ABA practitioners will claim that ABA is no longer harmful, but while its goals remain to force conformity, it will create this issue of monotropic split.

In order to create happy and healthy Autistic people, we need to support them to be as independent as possible in the world while living in a way that is comfortable for them. This means allowing Autistic people to be interest-led, and to regulate their senses and emotions naturally rather than hide their struggles for the comfort of others.

I am not a fool. ABA won’t be ended overnight. It is a billion dollar industry that uses lobbying and misinformation to maintain its hold over stakeholders. In the short run, we have to focus on harm reduction efforts, which can range from supporting survivors to sewing the seeds of dissent amongst its practitioners.

We can not and will not stop speaking out against it. Slowly but surely, we can shift the power imbalance. However, we have to recognise that while the foundation of colonialism exists, practices like ABA will remain an issue for those who do not adhere to the cult of normality.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Feb 13 2023
Mental health and the diagnostic process: A neurofuturist perspective

As I discussed in my recent article about co-occurring conditions, the diagnostic process in psychiatry is inherently flawed on the basis that we have failed to find any meaningful relationship between the so-called “symptoms” of psychiatric conditions, and physical biomarkers which can be measured. Despite this lack of physiological cause, we are still diagnosing people as mentally “ill”. Despite this model not improving outcomes for around half a century.

So now we are faced with the issue of how diagnosis is not just given, but also how it is given responsibly.

One of the biggest flaws of psychiatry is the circular logic that dominates the diagnostic process. A person is Schizophrenic because they have symptoms of Schizophrenia, and they have those symptoms because they are Schizophrenic. This logic does not allow for a nuanced understanding of why a person may experience this particular cluster of traits, it simply follows that A = B, which is because of A.

If this is the case, how does one escape from circular logic?

We have to look for causes for traits and “symptoms” outside of the realm of medicine. While I have often remarked that external factors are the only thing with a meaningful relationship to these experiences, medicine is yet to catch up. It seems reasonable to assume that traumatic experiences are the cause of psychiatric conditions and not a problem within the body. This has ramifications for the future of psychiatry.

If people are not “unwell”, psychiatry now has a moral duty to advocate for it’s patients. Psychiatry needs to evolve into a tool for social change, and cease to be a weapon wielded by normative society. Beyond this, psychiatry needs an understanding of the relationships between neurodivergence, trauma, and psychological distress. It is not enough for psychiatrists to bandage the wound, they need to remove the knife from the hand of society.

This requires us to radically rethink our entire perspective on normality and cultural normative standards. We can not just medicate people and expect them to assimilate into society. We need to help them understand their own unique space in the environment and how to embrace their journey through that space.

As I discuss in my book A Treatise on Chaos, identity is a shifting and ever changing value. We are, at our core, beings of chaos. Psychiatry needs to be a tool for supporting us in the more challenging parts of that chaos, and not serve as a ring-fence around the Self.

Psychiatry is not completely off the trail. Medication can serve as an important tool to support a person’s wellbeing, and can be very helpful for reducing the more troubling and distressing aspects of psychological distress. The most important thing is that we all put in the work to evolve psychiatry and mental health support into a means to challenge the oppressive systems that exist within our world.

It’s time to stop the navel-gazing, and build a better future.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Apr 7 2022
Addiction advocacy and the inspiration paradox: A reflection at 6 years sober

Today I am 6 years sober from addiction. During those six years I have learnt many lessons, but in this reflection I would like to consider something that has played on my mind for the past three years of my advocacy work.

Inspiration.

While not overtly a bad thing, it is often misused to infantilise and minimise the achievements of disabled people while hiding behind a mask of feigned respect. This phenomenon is known as “inspiration porn”.

A good (hypothetical) example of such a thing would be a video of a disabled person doing something completely mundane, like dancing, but they would be dancing with a non-disabled person. The video would centre the non-disabled as some kind of saviour to the disabled person for doing something as basic as treating them like a human being. The implication of the video, albeit in subtext, would be “Look at the amazing things that disabled people can achieve when an abled person rescues them from their shameful existence”.

It’s dehumanising and wrong.

So, addiction advocacy.

As a recovering addict in the public eye, I do what I do because I want to help others overcome similar challenges to my own, and help reduce their suffering. This does in fact require inspiring people. If it weren’t for the sober addict who showed me kindness during my first stretch on a psychiatric ward, I might not have chosen recovery.

The fact that they had turned their life around, and become someone I wanted to look up to was inspiring, and that isn’t a bad thing.

What would be bad would be if people like myself are allowed to become another source of inspiration porn. It’s a difficult line to walk. I want people to have what I have found, not get off on the tragedies that have formed who I am.

Contrary to popular belief, addicts are people. We are not burdens, we don’t deserve our suffering. Regardless of whether or not we are in recovery, we deserve food, housing, health care, support, and kindness.

This is what I want to inspire in people.

So please, don’t look at me and think it’s a miracle that I recovered. My recovery shouldn’t be the inspiration. I was privileged to have a loving and supportive set of family and friends. I had good key workers (although the services they came from were woefully ill-equipped). I was in a place where I was ready to enter recovery.

What I want to inspire in you is the idea that all addicts deserve recovery. I want to inspire you to challenge the systems that keep people like me trapped in a world of suffering.

I want you to know that those with less privilege than myself need us to get in the trenches and help them fight this war.

If that is what I inspire in people, then I am happy with what I am doing. If, however, you look at me and see a walking miracle, then I have not gone far enough.

The tragedies and traumas of my life should not be celebrated. They should be wielded as weapons to dismantle the masters house, and rebuild it into something where we can all coexist and thrive.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Feb 15 2021
Lessons I have learned about trauma

I haven’t spoken extensively about it, but my life has been one of extensive trauma. Not necessarily one consistently traumatic experience (although I’ve had my share), no, I have been- as most would put it- very unlucky. I have rolled from one traumatic experience to another.

These traumas set the stage for my mental health problems and addiction issues. As one psychologist put it “it was inevitable that you would experience psychosis and addiction”. I often wonder what life would have been like had I learned to process my trauma from an early age.

That leads nicely into my first lesson. You can not spend your life wondering about the “what if?” of your past. No amount of bargaining will make traumatic events unhappen. We must accept our pasts and learn to grow and move forward.

Another lesson I have learned is that trauma leaves you with psychological wounds. If left to fester, those wounds will form obvious scars that may appear in increasingly unsettled behaviour. For the sake of not perpetuating our trauma, we must allow ourselves the time, space, and resources to heal. Perhaps the hardest lesson we learn is that we are worthy of the time it takes to heal.

A difficult, but necessary lesson that I have learned, is that we don’t have the right to act out the effects of our trauma on other people. There was a time when I took my suffering out on others. Once again, this perpetuates trauma, leading to generation upon generation experiencing increased suffering.

It was necessary for me to take time away from the world, and look into the darkest recesses of my own being. I had to root out my triggers, and learn to coexist with them, slowly desensitising. This has been an imperfect, and at times messy, process. I am still coming to terms with a lot of the trauma I have been through. It’s okay to admit that you are working on stuff.

The greatest lesson that I have learned, however, was to be kind to people. Altruism feeds the proverbial soul, and whilst kindness costs very little (in general), the rewards are extensive. I could not have reached the place of strength that I am at in my recovery without learning to be kind.

Love yourself, love your scars. Love every part of you that survived the traumas you have faced. We are all worthy of healing, and we all have the capacity to make a difference in our own lives. Our individual experiences give rise to the great beauty of our diversity, and I believe that is something to be celebrated.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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