The Autism Spectrum According to Autistic People

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The Autism Spectrum
According to Autistic People

NeuroClastic

Change | Divergently

Autism

What is Autism? | Autistic Traits | Communication | Diagnosis | Child Therapies | Education | Autism Research

Gaia loves making senses

Jorn Bettin December 19, 2024

Core ideas within Buddhist and Daoist spiritual traditions are reflective of the commonalities found across many human scale indigenous cultures. A compassionate frame of love as vulnerable mutual knowing is compatible with a panpsychic relational philosophy. Everyone wants their experience to be taken seriously. We are embodied spirits, compelled to make sense of this world, and we can only do so in good company.

Gaia loves making senses

Jorn Bettin December 19, 2024

Core ideas within Buddhist and Daoist spiritual traditions are reflective of the commonalities found across many human scale indigenous cultures. A compassionate frame of love as vulnerable mutual knowing is compatible with a panpsychic relational philosophy. Everyone wants their experience to be taken seriously. We are embodied spirits, compelled to make sense of this world, and we can only do so in good company.

Gaia loves making senses

Jorn Bettin December 19, 2024

Core ideas within Buddhist and Daoist spiritual traditions are reflective of the commonalities found across many human scale indigenous cultures. A compassionate frame of love as vulnerable mutual knowing is compatible with a panpsychic relational philosophy. Everyone wants their experience to be taken seriously. We are embodied spirits, compelled to make sense of this world, and we can only do so in good company.

unWEIRDing Autistic ways of being

Jorn Bettin November 8, 2023

The mental health crisis, which is best understood as a crisis of pervasive cognitive dissonance, and which affects large parts of the population, creates plenty of profitable opportunities for ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approaches. Neurological and cultural diversity is the reservoir of imagination of the human species. In a time of existential crises the collective creative potential of neurodivergent people and marginalised cultures has become more important than ever.

Bringing our gifts to life

Jorn Bettin October 26, 2023

We did not evolve for a transactional world. It is time to stop trying harder to fit in. We have already done so all our life. We need to slow down,  to the relational speed of life that is compatible with our evolutionary history. This is well understood by many indigenous cultures in different parts of the world, but this knowledge, this deep wisdom has been actively suppressed.

Coherent theories of human ways of being

Jorn Bettin September 7, 2023

Autistic people support each other, love each other, and care for each other in ways that go far beyond the culturally impaired neuronormative imagination. It is time to remind the so-called “civilised” world about non-pathologising and coherent theories of human ways of being that are integrated into ecologies of care and the evolutionary flows of life in-formation.

Co-creating comprehensible ecologies of care beyond the human

Jorn Bettin July 16, 2023

Unmasked human life is an impossibility beyond human scale. Human wellbeing can only be understood in terms of the health of small, comprehensible ecologies of care. It can neither be understood in terms of an atomised self, which is what much of Western medicine is about, nor in terms of conformance to anonymous cultural norms and expectations, which is what the modern digital sphere of corporations, social media, and big government is all about.

Life is, at bottom, diversity

Jorn Bettin June 29, 2023

Just like a cell, a cultural organism has many critical interdependencies with the outside world; the state of environmental health is deeply entangled with the internal state of health of the cultural organism. Autistic life is incompatible within a society that lives within an Overton window. To understand why, look no further than the way in which Helen Mirra is conceptualizing autistic experience as holotropic. Holotropic people have naturally wide open sensory gates. To participate in/as the immense world without becoming overwhelmed, we holotropes have two central methods: in, by hyperfocusing our attention on one sensory or cognitive path, and as, through synthesising our experience into coherence.

web of life

The evolution of cultural organisms

Jorn Bettin June 9, 2023

Culture may not seem to change much from year to year, but if we look closely in the right places, major changes take place every 5 to 10 years. The toxicity of the industrialised paradigm is not the absence of cultural dynamism, but the systematic channeling of all cultural change into frantic busyness within an established and fundamentally misguided paradigm. For the Neurodiversity Movement this means that engaging exclusively with the pathologising silos of W.E.I.R.D. psychiatry and psychology is a dead end. The futility of cosmetic neurodiversity lite approaches becomes fully visible from a transdisciplinary viewpoint.

Falling in love with human limitations – healing from anthropocentrism

Jorn Bettin July 7, 2024

Humans are not going to find solutions for the polycrisis, conquer new planets, the galaxy, and the universe, fully understand the human condition, or develop technologies that replace anthropocentrism with technocentrism. Minimising suffering beyond the human translates to nurturing ecologies of care beyond the human, and to falling in love with human limitations.

How much cognitive dissonance is in your life?

Jorn Bettin July 2, 2024

The Autistic Collaboration Trust has been active in researching cultural and psychological safety from an intersectional perspective. We now explore the level of cognitive dissonance that is generated by the societies that people are embedded in. You are invited to contribute! The results of this research will inform the education services we provide to healthcare professionals and education providers.

Decolonising education

Jorn Bettin May 24, 2024

The April NeurodiVerse Days of Solidarity catalysed a range of conversations, with many threads weaving through the topic of education. Several topics resulted in in-depth discussion and new emerging ongoing collaborations, which is beautiful to see. Changes towards a more egalitarian culture that deeply fully appreciates cultural, biological, and ecological diversity are changes that improve the lives of all people, re-align humanity with our evolutionary heritage, and help us nurture sacred relationships beyond the human.

How safe do/did you feel growing up?

Jorn Bettin April 23, 2024

Initial results from a survey on psychological safety and mental wellbeing indicate that the biggest fears of Neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, and Disabled children – and especially those who also belong to cultural minorities, relate to classmates, parents, and teachers. 97% indicate often or always having anxiety, and 80% indicate often or always feeling depressed. We are committed to gathering further data from as many geographies as possible. The data and lived experience reports will flow into our education courses for teachers, and will inform our advocacy work.

Trust in Human Scale

Jorn Bettin April 16, 2024

Autistic ways of being are part of a culture that deserves the same respect as any other culture. The key element that holds together all the threads, which has been systematically eroded in Westernised societies: the notion of trust, including the role of trustworthy, sacred relationships within the context of ecologies of care beyond the human. If, as a species, we have one responsibility within the planetary ecosystem, it is to recognise that it is time to set the record straight on the toxicity of a culture that normalises and even celebrates competitive and deceptive behaviour.

How unsafe do Autistic and intersectionally marginalised people feel in your presence?

Jorn Bettin April 11, 2024

The biggest fears of Neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+ and Disabled people relate to unmet healthcare needs, their work environment, their parents, and disrespect by healthcare professionals. Data from our participatory research shows the large overlap and the intersectionality between Autistic communities, and the LGBTQIA+ and Disabled communities.

Falling in love with human limitations – healing from anthropocentrism

Jorn Bettin July 7, 2024

Humans are not going to find solutions for the polycrisis, conquer new planets, the galaxy, and the universe, fully understand the human condition, or develop technologies that replace anthropocentrism with technocentrism. Minimising suffering beyond the human translates to nurturing ecologies of care beyond the human, and to falling in love with human limitations.

How much cognitive dissonance is in your life?

Jorn Bettin July 2, 2024

The Autistic Collaboration Trust has been active in researching cultural and psychological safety from an intersectional perspective. We now explore the level of cognitive dissonance that is generated by the societies that people are embedded in. You are invited to contribute! The results of this research will inform the education services we provide to healthcare professionals and education providers.

Decolonising education

Jorn Bettin May 24, 2024

The April NeurodiVerse Days of Solidarity catalysed a range of conversations, with many threads weaving through the topic of education. Several topics resulted in in-depth discussion and new emerging ongoing collaborations, which is beautiful to see. Changes towards a more egalitarian culture that deeply fully appreciates cultural, biological, and ecological diversity are changes that improve the lives of all people, re-align humanity with our evolutionary heritage, and help us nurture sacred relationships beyond the human.

How safe do/did you feel growing up?

Jorn Bettin April 23, 2024

Initial results from a survey on psychological safety and mental wellbeing indicate that the biggest fears of Neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, and Disabled children – and especially those who also belong to cultural minorities, relate to classmates, parents, and teachers. 97% indicate often or always having anxiety, and 80% indicate often or always feeling depressed. We are committed to gathering further data from as many geographies as possible. The data and lived experience reports will flow into our education courses for teachers, and will inform our advocacy work.

Trust in Human Scale

Jorn Bettin April 16, 2024

Autistic ways of being are part of a culture that deserves the same respect as any other culture. The key element that holds together all the threads, which has been systematically eroded in Westernised societies: the notion of trust, including the role of trustworthy, sacred relationships within the context of ecologies of care beyond the human. If, as a species, we have one responsibility within the planetary ecosystem, it is to recognise that it is time to set the record straight on the toxicity of a culture that normalises and even celebrates competitive and deceptive behaviour.

How unsafe do Autistic and intersectionally marginalised people feel in your presence?

Jorn Bettin April 11, 2024

The biggest fears of Neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+ and Disabled people relate to unmet healthcare needs, their work environment, their parents, and disrespect by healthcare professionals. Data from our participatory research shows the large overlap and the intersectionality between Autistic communities, and the LGBTQIA+ and Disabled communities.

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