Humanizing autism research and treatment: Facilitating individuation through person-centered therapy.

Abstract

the authors describe autism spectrum disorder as the failure to individuate. In each of these examples, autism is described as a normal period of development common to all infants, but from which autistic children never emerge. Individuation, which occurs after the autistic period, can only occur on the basis of a problem that the infant must resolve on their own. Failure to individuate also means a failure to develop the abstract attitudethat is, to use and understand symbolic language, as it may be seen in adults with advanced psychosis (Prouty, 1976(Prouty, , 2007. The treatment of autism begins with counseling the person through the individuation process. Carl Rogers's person-centered therapy, which includes affective contact and the opportunity for the person to develop autonomy, is given as an example.

De-centering Neuronormativity is an Imperative in Humanistic Psychotherapy: Towards a Neurodiversity-Informed, Person-Centered Approach

“…"special needs," and "bizarre," and identity-first terms with negative connotation, to describe individuals as well as behaviors (see, e.g., Campling, 2007;Hawkins, 2007Hawkins, , 2014Krietemeyer & Prouty, 2007;Lipinska, 2014;Oberreiter, 2021;Pörtner, 2017;Prouty, 2007;Rutten, 2014;Swan, 2018). Whitehead and Purvis (2023) use medicalized language and advocate for an approach partially in association with the ideas of the discredited psychologist Bruno Bettelheim.…”