Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

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

6 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

ashklaass's review against another edition

hopeful informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, Medical trauma, and Medical content

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

notnicolebrewer's review against another edition

emotional informative fast-paced

5.0

I read this book as part of a deep dive into my own personal autism research as I pursued my diagnosis. In the time between realizing I was likely autistic and actually being diagnosed with autism, I wanted to learn everything I could about how autism actually manifests. TikTok was a great starting point for this, with stories from people living with autism, but obviously TikTok is not a *source* - I was glad to find this book, and I'm happy to have it now to recommend to my family.

Neurotribes is a carefully researched book that spans over a century to look closely at how autism came to be represented in medicine and society. It's largely horrific: until nearly the 2000s, an autism diagnosis would almost always resulted in either forced institutionalization, or "treatment" that closely resembled torture, all in an effort to "overcome" it. It is absolutely heartbreaking to hear about how children are studied, experimented on, tortured, and abandoned to institutions, and there are long sections of the book that detail arguments of the time for eugenics as they are relevant to autism research and history. Still, throughout the book, it is clear the author writes with a profound compassion and empathy for people and families managing autism now: the hideous and violent history of the condition and diagnosis are condemnable, and are condemned. 

The bulk of this book examines this difficult history, but it is sandwiched on either end by some speculation and observations around autism in the 21st century - it considers the "autism epidemic," a phenomenon not caused by an actual uptick in autism, but in a growth of diagnoses, as both the diagnostic criteria are expanded and better understood, and the diagnosis itself is not a sentence to a stilted life. The autism "epidemic" is simply the beautiful result of autistic individuals being allowed to exist in the whole, complex, and individual lives they have always had the capacity of enjoying - it is the beginning of an end of stigma, perhaps.

I highly recommend this book as a learning tool, for its breadth and scope, with the warning that within that scope is a long and horrible history of ableism.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Child death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Ableism, Antisemitism, Child abuse, and Medical trauma

flordemaga's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Antisemitism, Bullying, Genocide, and Self harm

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Suicide