[PEN-L:31569] Re: utism - social capital?

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The discussion looks well-informed and insightful. It is not my area of
focus, which is more around better psychological and social treatments of
psychosis. http://www.isps.org/

However my impressions are

yes, a unitary diagnostic approach to autism will probably break down. The
dialectical prejudice to doubt everything especially abstract categories,
is wise. Yes "autism" is over determined, or multiply determined.
Everything is connected with everything else. Or at least the average
neurone in the brain is connected with 1000. So the permutations are
infinite and the question is about what patterns help the individual to
balance and interact with the world. It is most unlikey autism is a single
category.

Yes, even if doctors are not crude in overemphasising the role of
diagnosis, they probably are restricted by their technology to prescribing
medication. However even if there is some underlying chemical vulnerability
in a proportion of cases I would expect treatment options to develop of a
psychological and social nature.

Jim pointed out the need to distinguish whether a disorder or group of
disorders is truly on the rise or whether it is being diagnosed more. If it
really is on the rise, and this happens, as with asthma, what social
factors may contribute? I would add onto the list for discussion the
emerging concept of social capital: the non-commodified human interactions
that make individuals and societies resilient, and which may get eroded by
capitalism.  A concept that some might regards as wooly and liberal but
which IMO need not be incompatible with a more orthodox marxist view of
capitalist commodity production.

But no social or economic interpretation of a condition like autism should
itself be simplistic or reductionist. It is not of course "all caused by
capitalism".

Chris Burford

London