Psychology studies the
individual, and sociology studies the group. Social psychology studies the
relation between the individual and the group, and for me that’s where all the
action is. I study perception and the subjective organization of meaning ...

*  *  *  *  * 

Is it possible for
someone to be slightly autistic? When we consider autistic perception the
consensus today is that we are talking about Autism Spectrum Disorder. That is
the mainstream psychiatry/psychology viewpoint. Yet, the question remains. If
there is a continuum of autistic perception reaching from the lowest functioning
to the highest functioning, is it possible to be kind of on the spectrum? Is it
possible to be a little bit on that spectrum, somewhere?

 It is an interesting
question for two immediate and obvious reasons. The first reason it is
interesting is because most people would probably answer yes, and agree that a
person could be slightly autistic. Each of us knows several people who would qualify. It is also interesting because in psychiatry
and psychology proper, there is no way to account for that. So, in the simplest way
humanly possible, I suggest we consider briefly why the psych professionals
cannot do it, and then I suggest we consider why it might be eminently possible
to conceive of such a thing as being slightly autistic.

 It comes down to the difference
between mainstream and alternative viewpoints, because the means for understanding
the reality of slight autism has been a part of social psychology for over 20
years, it simply has not been assimilated into the mainstream yet. Rest assured,
one day the white coats will carefully explain the logic of slight autism to
curious patients, but these things take time, and the wheels move slowly. In
any case, knowing how the world works, it should come as no surprise that some
of the best social psychology has yet to see the light of day.

 The reason psychiatry/psychology professionals cannot fully embrace the phenomena of autistic perception is that
psychology started out with a view of perception as one thing. For psychologists,
it is human perception that looks at the world, and then on the basis of those
perceptions, humans decide how to behave. Humans engage the act of perception
on a high level of awareness that includes social awareness and awareness of
self. Yet, psychology, and psychiatry, always assumed perception was one act of
one phenomenon of one experience called the one act of human perception.

 They did what scientists
do. They measured and measured. They established the norm. And then they
declared that everyone not falling into the zone of normal perception was, of
course, abnormal. Now we have abnormal psychology. The real clue here is that
psychology has been obsessed with normalcy – almost freakishly so. It is as if
psychology has obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to normalcy.

 Next they assembled all
the descriptions available for as many kinds of abnormal perception and
behavior as they could chronicle, and they proceeded to publish it in a diagnostic
and statistical manual of mental disorders and in so doing framed the official
science of psychiatry and abnormal psychology that we have now. By the way, I
just scrunched the last 70 years of psychiatry and psychology into one long
sentence – so please don’t hang on every word, and don’t take me too literally,
I am moving fast here.

 Most recently, regarding
autism, the new official category has changed to Autism Spectrum Disorder because
they are now recognizing that there is some kind of continuum of autistic
perception and it is difficult to always force people into boxes as they did
before. There used to be a box for autism, and another box for high functioning
autism, and another box for Asperger’s Syndrome, the most highly functioning type
of autism. When I began studying autistic perception some 25 years ago, they
had just created a box called Pervasive Developmental Disorder … but that
deserves a post all by itself.

 Anyhow, now they recognize
that you can be low-functioning autistic and live perhaps virtually institutionalized. But,
you can also be mid-functioning, high-functioning, and then you can be Asperger’s,
which is very high-functioning. But, you can also be kind of in between
high-functioning and Asperger’s. There are kids who start out high-functioning
and develop into Asperger’s naturally of their own accord – though unscrupulous
professionals have lurched to claim credit for cures that were really just
feats of such natural development … but that deserves a post all by itself.

 We still have not been
able to answer the question about the possibility of being slightly autistic.
Even though they widened the strict box-like categories for autism into a
spectrum of autistic disorders, they can now account for being in between two
boxes, so to speak, but they cannot even begin to account for the idea that
someone might be kind of on the spectrum but not diagnosably on it. Yet, almost intuitively, we all know there are plenty of seemingly normal people out there who experience significant challenges with social life. We also know there have been people who were not exactly developmentally disabled or mentally disordered, the hermit or the Gandhi, who had gifts for living apart from normal social life.

~End part 1 - part 2 Thursday~