JuniperFromGallifrey said:

the first Rule is always about matters of Safety

I recognised this rule from an early age which --- in all probability--- is why I (consciously/unconsciously?) opted to take a path of least resistance as my "tool" to deal with my reality as I perceived it to be.  Self-preservation has been a survival instinct for me. Wearing my heart on my sleeve was not one of my instincts. Old habits, I find difficult to unmask.

Senses exist to help us relate with the world. Like any innate potential, they need to be crafted, honed, disciplined. Too much or not enough aren’t always the key issue but how they’re put to use and the first Rule is always about matters of Safety  

The sense of smell for example. We all have a nose which actually works in tandem with our sense of taste and our sense of taste is complete with a unique set of enzymes. So, everyone to some degree can have a fundamental sense of smell. Not everyone can always sense-perceive the same things. For instance, my son has a keen ability to sense different kinds of woods- pine vs maple. I can smell this just not as distinctly as he might. This sense might help provide a clue to some kind of potential like wood working though it’s not been explored. This sense however, can be further investigated. We could order up shavings of an assortment of wood and he could spend a little time with each becoming familiar with their nuance's’, maybe writing down thoughts and associations (perhaps to favourite whiskeys or an image of a kind of woodland). This is no different than familiarising the self with any knowledge but it will take the form of a skilled or crafted Sense-Perception. And since all woods can provide different strengths or have different levels of toxicity depending on their use, he could make quick calculated decisions should we collect bits from the forest floor to burn or build with (as an example).  This same knowledge is needed by foragers who ensure mushrooms sold to the public are safe. 

So it’s not really about more or less but what one can do with what they have. We exist in a society overrun by sensory assault. The best way to arrest that is really for those of us with better potential with Sense Perception to incorporate physical tools into our argument and show the public how they’re slowly destroying themselves. :) 

following your debate with Juniper is wonderful for me as a robot still learning how to be human!  Please keep it up!

I do wonder if we're too sensitive rather than not sensitive enough. 

I tried, haltingly, to explain something similar to an adviser recently: 

*If I display empathy, it's not some saint-like quality of mine but, instead, something I'm often not responsible for.

*If I *don't* display empathy, it's not some callous aspect of my personality but, instead, something I'm often not responsible for.

There is good reason to believe many of us are withdrawn - rather than stupid or slow or mind-blind or callous. And when this happens, we can be cut off from our selves to some degree. It's a kind of survival mechanism from the Too-Much All-At-Once experience. 

And then add a layer of genuine confusion, and yes, it could appear from the outside that we lack something. But not to each other. I can always spot an autist who's been neglected or abused or is just lost, and even those with supportive parents. 

A lot of psychology is there to help non-autistics be more direct with their communication and to help them form more reasonable expectations. To cure them of cognitive bias and seek understanding rather than lashing out in assault. Reading enough of psychology and philosophy and one begins to learn most humans are traumatised into adulthood. But some are provided weapons to fight back.

I find expert debate about autistic empathy to be strange and contradictory. Unfortunately, lacking any actual expertise myself, I can only speak from my own experience: I often become really distressed if someone else is physically hurt; can be almost childishly over-sentimental about the distress or the miserable circumstances of others; and yet sometimes I miss all the cues if somebody is *emotionally* hurt, and then my reaction is 'flat'. This is why, for years, I just concluded that I was plain stupid ('slow').

He did use clinical terms of the time. I actually appreciate those uses as a way to explicitly state a thing so as to not be misunderstood. Especially now, everyone knows just enough to be dangerous, misusing perfectly good terminology like "Empathy". But I misused it 15 years ago too, but thankfully a whole article on the difference between Empathy, Sympathy and Compassion set me straight. 

I do find perfectly good archaic terms and they're useful in a social setting where anything else might come across as a power move. Non-autistics now believe the attempt at explaining one is autistic gives them diplomatic immunity to be cruel. Sigh.

I agree with the feeling of everything being uncertain. It's possibly a more productive way to genuinely understand life.

And yes, I think you're right, one cannot separate psychology from biology but I don't believe psychology does this. It's not working from a starting ground of the individual but the tribe/group. There is still the matter of human perception, tribal inclusion even at the cost of objective truth and group-think. It tends to think about humans in relationships because we cannot survive isolated. Nor can any Proof or Objective understanding.

One of the complexities any of us will run into if we start digging deep enough into psychology is that there does exist a great deal of what appear to be presumptions, all of which might not actually apply to Autistic Reasoning or autistic neural-wiring. But Read further, and one can begin to see how they do apply to the neurotic wiring. If Lacan is right (studied under Freud), and Autistics have difficulty with defence mechanisms, we're the opposite of neurotic and this would be a perfect starting ground for neurologists to confirm a lack of asymmetrical strengthened wires in the lobes responsible for langauge/semiotics. If they ask the right questions and can define the difference through clinical proof, this can change everything. It deletes ABA and restructures all of Autism Research - and all we'd have to do is look at what a Psychoanalyst could identify in 1950. The answers were there. Unfortunately Neuroscience didn't start making a dent until after the 80s when everything started to get wobbly.

I found his analyses of notorious historical figures still concentrated on types like the 'anal-retentive' and so on, Juniper. But it could be my thinking that Fromm's analyses were outdated are a result of forgetting that the book's publication was some decades ago.

NB: This makes it sound like I don't value the book when that's absolutely not the case; it's just typical of my problems with communication.

Fromm has a good deal to say - I've learned so much from reading him. But when you say 'Freudian', how are you using this? Just curious!

I read Fromm's 'Anatomy of Human Destructiveness' some years ago. Quite Freudian, and an unforgettable book.

We don't actually fall back on them, they, like many had discovered and created fundamentally valuable and useful "Concepts", which worked. They weren't alone, they're just more notable names.

And these are not separated from Philosophical concepts. Historically, one can trace ideas back to other ideas, each building upon the previous. Although, sometimes, like the Bad Turn taken with the wrong theories on Autism, one will run into a dead end and hopefully that line of thinking, without much grounded reasoning will eventually wither like a disconnected branch.

Philosophy birthed Alchemy, which branched into Chemistry and Medicine, but Philosophy helped provide rules for thinking and analysis within the Natural Sciences, which birthed physics. but Alchemy's grand goal, the Philosopher's Stone, was to turn lead into gold and thanks to physics that can now be done.

Philosophy birthed ethics which gave way to our judicial system, and it delved into the nature of the soul, the nature of being human which has unravelled into psychology. Humans discover a thing when it appears distinct. An illness is something we have always been aware can wipe out whole civilisations so it's in our best interest to take note of something unique.

Freud was born at the right time - at a Ripe Time in history for the main concepts he's known for - the Ego and the Unconscious. Two fascinating "Axioms". But he wasn't really alone in identifying the Love of Power - power over, which has been about in historical texts since the dawn of time. All philosophers deal with this. Jung broke away from Freud and we're thankful he did. But due to the sheer volumes of material which these two had time and resources to build, they are a bit of a link between the past and the trajectory we've arrived at with varying schools of thought. Both of them quote a wealth of contemporaries and predecessors they drew from. 

I think it's important to have a bit of an understanding of their work in order to engage in a Modern Debate and also a grounded fair fight against Bad Research in Autism. But it's also good to then know a bit about  those who furthered their work, and/or identified where it was incomplete. Freud and Jung were pivotal individuals who influenced schools of thought which sometimes get warped out of context and misapplied. 

It's always good to go to the source and understand it for yourself - whether fact checking a biblical scholar or a journalist. I can tell you one of the most useful discoveries I've found involve the early anti-psychiatry movement which helped expose society as a maddening problem or the corrupted doctors worsening symptoms. Laing was part of this. Erich Fromm who has helped shed light on matters of being human and how isolation is at the root of most of our worst problems. And the noticeable differing schools of thought, which, if constructed in the right research, could spell out the basic differences between autistic and non-autistic by just examining Continental philosophy vs Analytical - and these have been right under our noses the whole time! All of these studied Freud and Jung in the last century. It's a great deal to take in. Somewhere in the 80's there's too many "cooks in the kitchen" and psychology becomes the new Snake Oil. I personally think we need to back track a bit and clean up before proceeding forward.

To possibly add to "glued together theories" here is a link to further resources:

The Top 44 Autism Open Source Projects (awesomeopensource.com)

thanks for you valued insight.  What strikes me as odd is why we still fall back on Freud/Jung research. There must be more updated research since those chaps.

Mariusz said:

My brain refuse to look on psychology as something disconnected from biology. For me everything is connected,

This connection is inclusive of the entire universe according to the creator of "the Law of One"

Law Of One Quotes

There is still almost nothing certain or proven. Just loads of made up and glued together theories. Progress in direction of truth isn't alligned with interests of those who rule us. So probably it will be progressing slowly still, accidently giving truthful results, hidden among loads of other theories that are incorrect because were based on too many assumptions. Major mistake is looking on everything from outside, making conclusions based on symptoms not causes. But there is more than there was 50 years ago.

My brain refuse to look on psychology as something disconnected from biology. For me everything is connected,

I only hope each of us is building their own theory, involving senses, and how brain processes signals, and how we draw conclusions, store memories, and so on, and how and why and when genes giving each model differentiated from what is considered normal

I love Jung! He was Open to Being Wrong - or just exploring what he could with what he had. He would often simply state where the science was at, what discoveries were being made and what that might mean. Back then you would have to present additional difficulties to be Dx'd Autistic. Many of our Traits were simply accepted as a different personalty type. 

His volumes on Dreams are really enjoyable. There's quite a bit of metaphysical exploration with lovely nuggets of history - we sense them so much more just by listening to someone in that Time.

What's even MORE fascinating is to see how these psychoanalysts careers played out based on their early clinical experiences. For instance, Freud's early work was with far too many sexually abused individuals. The stories were severe. He started to see similarities and you can hear a conscience in his early work - but it's easy to then understand how this directed his future trajectory. 

Jung - it seems, may have encountered a whole entourage of autistically wired individuals. Just whack open volume one and start reading. And he makes a big differentiation between the Extrovert and Introvert. There's a possibility this would be an early way of describing Allistic and Autistic. 

Neuroscience is actually proving some early theories. I could go on here... but I'm a bit tire. Good topic! I'd encourage everyone to look back at historical work in psychology. It can make a good deal of sense with in our current world. 

Yes. Thank you for summing-up in an understandable sentence what it took me hundreds of words to unwittingly obscure. :D

Obsessive reading between the lines eh?

I really should've cut to the chase and just written: 'I meant that many of my issues are *symbolised*, rather than accurately represented, in my mind. This frequently leads me to misinterpret, over-analyse, and to endlessly get things out of proportion.

A simple, stereotypical and staged photograph of a vacant wheelchair in an abandoned asylum is not merely simple: like van Gogh's painting of a chair, the photo - and what it potentially symbolises, personally and universally - is all too open to interpretation. It's not the asylum which may be haunted or trapped in past trauma, it's not Vincent who was tormented and lonely: it is, instead, the observer. It's almost as if our problems brought forth their art, as if to give an image to our vague problems, to put a face to them.

My problems are a) misinterpreting the meaning (if any exists or was intended), and b) being prone to lose myself in speculation and pondering. In my 'world', nearly *everything* is meaning-laden and significant.