Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman

8 reviews

tinyplanet's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

3.5

Well-researched and well-written summary of the history of autism to ~2010. It was not a fun read. It unfortunately felt like a long account of how autistic people (and people with other developmental disabilities and mental illnesses) have been abused, stigmatized, imprisoned in institutions and mental asylums, denied education, infantilized, sterilized, tortured, and murdered, with some breaks to show autistic people in a symp thetic to positive light. Silberman did cover the history of the nascent autism self-advocacy movement in the United States and interviewed many autistic people and their families.

The book is white- and Western-centric, primarily focused on Austria, the UK, and the US, where most formal research on autism has been done. Silberman does include the voices of some girls and sometimes autistic mothers, plus Temple Grandin. There are some mentions of Japanese families, but very little said about minorities in the US or lower socioeconomic classes.

Silberman attempts to let the facts stand for themselves. In doing so, he does not take a strong stand against some of the figures who committed abuses. Asperger is presented as Nazi-lite. Electrocution is clearly bad, but the insidious frameworks that ins ired such a "treatment" are not fully confronted. Inference is required to identify all of the issues that Silberman presents.

This book may have the most content warnings of any book I have reviewed, although none of it is gratuitous.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Bullying, Confinement, Physical abuse, Ableism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Antisemitism, Genocide, Grief, Self harm, Suicide attempt, War, Medical content, Transphobia, Violence, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Torture, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Miscarriage, Fatphobia, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Addiction, Excrement, Panic attacks/disorders, Hate crime, Murder, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, and Vomit

changelingreader_adrian's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Medical content, Medical trauma, Homophobia, Child abuse, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Self harm

Moderate: Suicide, Violence, Classism, Antisemitism, Torture, Medical trauma, Hate crime, and Racial slurs

Minor: Xenophobia, War, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Religious bigotry, Miscarriage, and Transphobia

georgiasummer98's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Medical content, Child abuse, Mental illness, and Ableism

lanid's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Child death, Child abuse, and Body horror

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Bullying

annapox's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad slow-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Child death, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Medical content, Physical abuse, Self harm, Forced institutionalization, and Murder

Moderate: Classism, Hate crime, Animal cruelty, Racism, Transphobia, Antisemitism, Animal death, Genocide, Mental illness, Misogyny, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

Minor: Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Islamophobia, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Abortion, and Fire/Fire injury

festiveconclave's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Ableism

Minor: Antisemitism and Suicide attempt

ashton_n's review against another edition

If I could give this negative stars, I would. 

Let’s get this straight, a neurotypical person should not be writing a history and guide about neurodiverse folks. The most important but ironically lacking in description are the following items.
- Asperger’s and Autism are not interchangeable, see below.  
- The use of Aspergers is totally outdated, and the guy it was named after tortured Autistic kids. 
-High and low functioning labels are damaging.
- Autism Speaks is a hate charity. 
- The introduction starts off with how terrible Autism is and how it needed to be eradicated. An intro should caveat and have disclaimers about current and past assumptions. Autism does not need to be eradicated. It isn’t a disease. 
- the whole thing, so freaking boring. Like does he ever stop rambling.
- This is a colonial whitewashed, classist, cis-heteropatriarchal ableist account of Autism. 

Follow the hashtags below or talk to real Autistic people. We don’t bite. 🙄
#actuallyautistic

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Ableism, Classism, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, and Medical trauma

Don’t read this garbage, talk to real autistic people.

buttermellow's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, and Child abuse

Moderate: Antisemitism, Homophobia, Bullying, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Suicide and Self harm