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A review by lupetuple
The Guide to Good Mental Health on the Autism Spectrum by Yenn Purkis, Emma Goodall, Jane Nugent
3.0
It was interesting to note several things I hadn't been aware of regarding my own experience, but I was aware of a lot of the information presented here. I'd say the advice is sound, but I still found the book to be a bit lacking surrounding the common experiences of trauma among autistic people. There were a few mentions of PTSD and even one of CPTSD, but nothing like the devotion of an entire section to such issues, which I think is an oversight. I appreciated the acknowledgment of psychosis though; the section was not stigmatizing at all and I like how it said that it's not bad to have schizophrenia and autism at the same time, even if perhaps one may have been misdiagnosed as psychotic due to misunderstanding by clinicians, and that it shouldn't be dismissed if you do indeed have psychotic experiences.
A big thing that bothered me was that most of the attention in the personal stories in particular went to people identified as having Asperger's. Using the term at all without the purpose of intelligibility (in terms of historical uses) when it's been proven to elevate certain autists above others doesn't sit well with me. I think that the book did try to reach autists across the spectrum but over and over I'd read "I was diagnosed with Asperger's ..." So there's that.
A big thing that bothered me was that most of the attention in the personal stories in particular went to people identified as having Asperger's. Using the term at all without the purpose of intelligibility (in terms of historical uses) when it's been proven to elevate certain autists above others doesn't sit well with me. I think that the book did try to reach autists across the spectrum but over and over I'd read "I was diagnosed with Asperger's ..." So there's that.