Reviews tagging 'Violence'

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

6 reviews

madamegorgon's review against another edition

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This book is not written for autistics, but for neurotypicals trying to understand the history of Autism.  Some extremely disturbing early “treatment” methods were included

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT HISTORY BOOK, just not really meant for autistics. The history of using violence and torture is important information for neurotypicals and supporters of ABA.

baileydot's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

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As long as you're reading it with the context that it was written in 2015, I think it's a very readable and informative broad overview of some western history of autism. I learned a lot of context of autism in psychology and society that I found useful, while knowing there's probably more complexity and nuance to learn about. It felt like a great jumping off point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization

Minor: Death

panickedhonking's review against another edition

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You can't hide behind a journalistic neutrality when you're creating a historical narrative, particularly when the harms done to the people you're writing about are so profoundly horrible. Silberman makes some implications, and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions about wretched abuses which at times read as non-objecting or passively supportive. 
Praising Hans Asperger as an unbridled hero and treasure, and failing to comment on the harms of outpatient therapies in the 60s and 70s in parallel to the inpatient shows either an acute lack of understanding or deliberate ignorance, and after a few glaring omissions I don't feel like this is a great way to learn about my history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation

tinyplanet's review against another edition

3.5

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

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

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

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

changelingreader_adrian's review against another edition

5.0

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

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Content Warnings

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

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

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

henrytinker's review against another edition

2.0

dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

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Overly long, factually incorrect, and not written by an autistic person. 

This book is predominantly a collection of biographical information about specific psychologists who contributed to the development of Autism as a diagnosis. It isn't very well written in my opinion, because the style is rather dry and without a clear narrative through line. It is also unclear why so much of it is devoted to certain people and topics adjacent to autism (e.g. speculating about famous historical men who could have been autistic, PKU, Ham Radio). Although there are some interesting parts, it could have done with rigorous editing. At best I would describe it as 'uneven'.

As an autistic person who is somewhat familiar with the history of the diagnosis already, it is worth pointing out that a lot of the information about Hans Asperger, whom Silberman seems determined to redeem, is incorrect. This book was published in 2015, and in 2018 new evidence came to light of Hans Asperger's collusion with Dr. Jekelius and other Nazis. Asperger is directly responsible for the deaths of numerous children, and as such those sections in the book were incredibly uncomfortable and frustrating to read. 

There really isn't much that humanises autistic people in this book, with the exception of the last chapter. There are lots of detailed descriptions of children suffering and being tortured, and a lot of focus placed on the narratives of the parents of autistic children. There is also very little mention of Autism Speaks and the harm that they have done and continue to do, which is an interesting omission for a book that seems so determined to present itself as thoroughly researched. I definitely expected better from this book, given all of the glowing reviews.

Please read books by people who are actually autistic! e.g. Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price, Authoring Autism by Melanie Yergeau, The Autistic Brain by Temple Grandin, A Mismatch of Salience by Dr Damien E M Milton, Neuroqueer Heresies by Dr. Nick Walker. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Physical abuse, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder