Differences Are Easily Distorted into Deficits
My fifth and final article in a series about how MCCs can be applied to more effectively supporting Autistics
As I’ve mentioned previously, I am currently studying cultural competencies in counselling.
As I’ve been reading, I’ve seen more and more parallels between practices which facilitate multiculturally competent counselling and approaches which can provide more effective and appropriate support to Autistic clients.
The Multicultural Counselling Competencies address five main requirements:
- Awareness of one’s own and of clients’ cultural heritage and the influence of culture on attitudes, beliefs and experiences
- Willingness to learn from clients and their families
- Knowledge about different cultures and cultural perspectives
- Awareness of systemic barriers faced by neurodivergent (ND) clients and families
- Skills to utilize culturally appropriate approaches
Steps for overcoming barriers to culturally competent practice
The textbook from which I am studying outlines four steps to overcoming barriers to culturally competent practice. These align very well with the MCCs listed above. They are:
- Controlling the tendency to stereotype;
- Respecting diversity and individual differences;
- Learning from clients; and
- Practitioner self-awareness
I discussed the first two in my recent article, and will discuss the final two here.
Learning from clients
Respecting the individual as an expert in their own experience is a philosophy most professionals would agree with in principle, but is something which can be difficult to put into practice.
This is especially true for clinicians who are guiding parents and who believe the parent’s love for their child is clouding their judgement, rendering them unable to be objective about what their child needs.
Yes, of course. That’s what parenting is. We’re not supposed to be objective about our children. It’s our job to put them first and foremost, and to protect them from harm.
That doesn’t make a parent any less of an expert on their own child, however. Certainly parents may benefit from education and support. There is a fine line that clinicians must walk between providing necessary information and guidance, and dismissing or failing to incorporate a parents’ valuable input.
Let’s be honest, when it comes to Autism, the field of psychology is so out of date it at times borders on negligence and even harm.
For example, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many clinicians continue to recommend behavioural therapies for Autistic children, even considering it the “gold standard of treatment”.
Some clinicians continue to hold very stereotypical views of Autism and of their Autistic clients. One harmful trope which is constantly being regurgitated without critical analysis or thought is this out-dated idea that Autistic people lack theory of mind (ToM).
If a poorly informed professional incorrectly believes their Autistic client lacks theory of mind, it will be pretty difficult to respect them as an expert in their own experience.
Practitioner self-awareness
In the textbook I’ve been referencing throughout this series of articles, ethnocentrism is defined as,
the inclination to judge other cultures negatively in relation to one’s own cultural values and norms
In her book Neuroqueer Heresies, Dr. Nick Walker describes a similar phenomenon across neurotypes, or neuro-cultures, which she calls neuronormativity.
A form of neurotypical-centricity, neuronormativity places the typical — the statistical ‘norm’ or predominant — neurotype above others, leading with the assumption that being neurotypical (NT) is inherently superior to being neurodivergent (ND).
“Neuronormativity is the performance of the local dominant culture’s current prevailing images of how a so-called “normal” person with a so-called “normal” mind thinks and looks and behaves.”
Many atypical behaviours are pathologized simply for being outside of what those in the statistical majority expect. We forget that the definition of pathology includes disease, illness, and/or harmful behaviours.
Things that are unique or different are not always pathological, sometimes they’re even considered assets. Behaviours which are out of the ordinary are not necessarily pathological. By definition, they should only be deemed as such if they cause distress, disease, or harm to oneself or to others.
Believing something is “weird” is not a tool for diagnostic measurement because it is much too subjective. Things that are out of place in one context are not so in another. Behaviours which are considered odd in some cultures are considered desirable in another.
In cautioning counsellors against the risks of ethnocentricity, Dr. Shebib warns,
“they may see cultural traits as something to be treated or changed because they use their traditions, standards, and majority norms as a measure of normal behaviour.”
That’s exactly what we do to Autistic and other neurodivergent folks. Our differences pathologized, considered traits needing to be treated or changed, simply because they are outside of the majority’s social and cultural standards.
Knowledge and skills
Unfortunately there are many professionals whose understanding of ADHD and Autism are so sorely out of date, if they were in any other field, they would be sent for remedial training.
I’m not aiming to be hard on my colleagues. There are many in the helping profession who work extremely hard to continuously update their knowledge, learn from the communities they support, and to do so in a respectful and compassionate way.
I’m certainly not infallible. I do and will make mistakes and will need to learn from them.
The problems aren’t with the individual practitioners, the issues are with the training programs, and with the field of psychology itself.
While things have certainly changed in the past century, the field of psychology was not initially institutionalized to help identify people needing support and treatment, nor to improve the quality of life of individuals who suffered from psychological illness.
“…a diversity of neurological types became something to be feared, avoided, and potentially medicalised.” — Mitzi Waltz
The process of assessing and diagnosing divergent neurologies became widely used in the early 1900s, when various states and provinces began writing compulsory schooling into law.
This wasn’t primarily because governments were concerned about educating our children, no. Compulsory schooling began so that children had somewhere to go during the day. Their fathers were being called off to war, so their mothers suddenly had to go off to work and wouldn’t be home to care for them.
Even more serious issues arose in the 1930s and 40s when psychological testing was used to rate citizens in terms of their usefulness to society.
We don’t do that now, so why should we care what happened many decades ago? Because, while the application and use of these tools have changed, the underlying issues remain.
“The ‘normal child’ is reduced to a standardized product, one whose parameters are regularly redesigned to fit the needs of the state and the labour market.” — Mitzi Waltz
Are we identifying, assessing, and diagnosing people in order to improve their quality of life? Or are we trying to treat and change people so they can better contribute to capitalism?
While I do tend to think in very black-and-white terms, the answers to these particular questions are extremely grey.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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References
Shebib, B. (2023). Choices: Interviewing and counselling skills for Canadians (8th ed.). Pearson Canada.
Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, Autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities. Autonomous Press.
Waltz, M. (2020). The production of the ‘normal’ child: Neurodiversity and the commodification of parenting. In Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, H., Chown, N., & Stenning, A. (Eds). Neurodiversity Studies: A new critical paradigm (pp. 15–26). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
