- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
"Sometimes people use ârespectâ to mean âtreating someone like a personâ and sometimes they use ârespectâ to mean âtreating someone like an authorityâ
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say âif you wonât respect me I wonât respect youâ and they mean âif you wonât treat me like an authority I wonât treat you like a personâ
and they think theyâre being fair but they arenât, and itâs not okay."
-a 15yo autistic girl experiencing ABA therapy
Whatâs ABA theory? But anyway, spot on.
From a quick search, itâs basically a therapy where, instead of figuring out why the patient is upset, you train them like a dog. And not even the training where you do gentle redirection from bad behaviours. The kind where you whap the âpatientâ (ie victim) for being âabnormalâ so they effectively become a nervous wreck who does as you please to avoid being hurt
Sounds like every conservativeâs wet dream.
In a conservative and nothing about this sounds appealing to me.
Do you know any conservatives in real life or do you just have a notion of who they are from memes?
Well, I know the policies theyâve been advocating for. You know like, taking away womenâs bodily autonomy. Denying them reproductive healthcare. Taking away the rights and dehumanising anybody who doesnât conform to their very narrow (and utterly unscientific) ideas of gender identity. Making healthcare unaffordable to the point where live expectancy in the richest country on earth is falling. Letting any idiot buy an assault rifle, leading to countless deaths and a population living in fear. An inhumane and deeply racist prison system. Letting police get away with open blatant murder. I could go on. So pardon me if I think that a âconservativeâ is a person who simply likes to make other people suffer.
So, I like everything in your post. I also sorta like guns, I also fully believe that something has to change as Iâm tired of all the shootings, and of my 26 years alive, weâve done nothing and there are only more shootings. But, you cannot buy an assault rifle in America. Legally anyway. For the average person. Thatâs already illegal. If youâre referring to the AR-15, that stands for armalite. The company that makes them.
But other than that, spot on. Especially when it comes to guns though, the people in that community refuse to take anyone talking like that seriously, so if weâre going to have change, in my opinion, you have to do so from another angle. The gun community in America is also massive, shockingly diverse, and only growing. Why do these people feel that they need to take safety into their own hands? I feel like thatâs largely the question that needs to be answered there.
Also, Iâll finish this by saying, I own one shotgun, that Iâve had since I was 12 and Iâve never shot it. Iâm not a crazy gun enthusiast, but, it is something many people I know take seriously. Oh, and I guess my general politics are reformed conservative? I was raised in the Midwest by conservative parents but every day I wake up more left leaning.
you know how liberals fall anywhere from âregulations are good toâ to âi think communism should be our mode of functionâ
Similar thing with conservatives. You can thank politics for lumping you in with the crazies.
I know conservatives that believe this would be a good idea. I grew up with my parents arguing with family about taking me to ABA, but thankfully my parents had sense and didnât. All of the family members that thought it would be a good idea are very conservative.
I see three possibilities:
One, you have a different definition of conservative than what is currently the general definition of that label in the US.
Two, youâre lying.
Three, youâre in a country other than the United States and therefore âconservativeâ doesnât mean the same thing in general to you.
Quick test: if you agree with or vote for any US Republican politician, youâre just lying. In any other case, there may be a misunderstanding.
Why the down votes?
Note that even what we pejoratively call âtraining like a dogâ is so obsolete that Iâve seen/read more than one dog trainer get a bit offended for comparing their profession to ABA. Ultimately, the problem with ABA is that it assumes that the object to be worked with isnât a subject worthy of being considered sentient, or of being capable of accurately expressing their needs or preferences, or that their mental processes are either too obscure or too wrong to even begin to take them into consideration, but rather that itâs just a very simple organism that you have to punish or reward until it learns to pretend to appear âhuman enoughâ in your eyes.
Youâd think we would have shelved it already when we already know a lot in the differences in the mental processes of autistic people.
That sounds more like the reason why a person would need a therapist to begin with, rather than any kind of actual treatment.
*therapy. Sounds like some sort of âAutism cureâ by christians. Which would be as effective and tortuous as âGay convertion therapyâ
No, itâs not that. Itâs a form of therapy that is highly controversial, and mostly stems from the observation that autistic humans can be brought to âbehaveâ like ânormal peopleâ if they are sufficiently conditioned to do that. Yet, it is not founded in religious BS, but rather a result of behavioral approaches to psychology that have been very popular, especially in the US and Canada at least since the 60s (like many addiction-therapies and such). Behavioral therapies arenât bad outright, but have spawned some questionable offspring (like all approaches in medicine tend to do). âConversion campsâ are such offspring. Regarding ABA: While many studies indicate that ABA does, in fact, bring autistic people to behave more like non-autistic people, that in itself is not evidence that the therapy is working. If depressive people behave like I want them to and get out of bed to clean the house because I hold a gun to their head, they are not âcuredâ. The same goes for this kind of therapy. There are merits to the principles of the approaches bundled under the term âABAâ, but the line between âhelping Autistic peopleâ and âtorturing autistic peopleâ is razor-thin. Unfortunately, many approaches that call themselves âABAâ are crossing that line, as do many therapists who deny people breaks or meals, or worse.
You know? Humans are cruel dumpster fires of bullshit once they think what they do is right and âfor the bestâ.
thanks for the clarification. Sounds like exactly what I suspected.
Itâs only controversial because the way the therapy has been implemented in the past (and unfortunately in some places still today) is similar to what you describe. However, modern practices donât try to train their clients to act like ânormal peopleâ and any serious technician or analyst will only use punishment (or threats of punishments) as a last resort in programs written to target the most imperative behaviors (like running into traffic). Instead, they focus on the use of reinforcement to teach their clients skills that help them to become self sufficient. Following your metaphor, it would be like offering a depressed person $10 for every chore they complete that day rather than holding a gun to their head. The goal is to establish a foundation for life outside of therapy, not to reduce the presentation of autism.
Iâm going to disagree with the other comment and claim that youâve made a very good observation. Even though conversion therapies and ABA may somewhat differ in their methods, the both of them are born from the basis of wanting to use operant conditioning on humans, and ignore everything else that weâve learned about the psychology and neurology of humans that explain why itâs a dogshit idea.
Some people think itâs some kind of autism cure. Itâs just understanding the reasons behind behaviors in order to increase behaviors that are desirable and decrease behaviors that are undesirable. Problems could arise from what ends up being defined as undesirable behavior and how that reinforcement is done but thatâs true of basically anything with the goal of changing behaviors.
My wife is autistic and studied it herself because it helped her understand all the âsocial bullshitâ as she called it.
Approaching it from the point of view of the autistic person trying to understand the traditional social interaction behaviors, to mimic them by choice for their own profit, sounds beneficial. Approaching it from a goal of forcing the autistic person to behave according to traditional social interactions for the benefit of others and the profit of the therapist, does not.
Pretty much yeah. Thatâs the problem and how it can become a very bad thing. Same as really any method that seeks to shape behaviors. Are you targeting this behavior because it actually causes distress and interferes with the autistic personâs enjoyment of life? Or are you just trying to breed conformity for the sake of conformity?
The others have pretty much answered about it, but specifically, itâs a very intense, very personal therapy, with some sessions lasting up to 8 hours. Itâs typically one-on-one with the therapist, who will be observing every behavior and rewarding behaviors that are desired. I havenât heard of any that do it around here, but I am sure some therapists âpunishâ for behaviors that they do not want to see again.
As was noted in the other replies, it can be extremely demeaning to reduce a person to their behaviors alone, and a great abyss lies next to the feet of any therapist that easily conceals abusive or immoral practices⊠and those feet are on a slippery slope of scree.
Applied Behavior Analysis therapy.
That sounds like a euphemism for hitting people.
It does still allow for aversives, so⊠Kinda?
Edit: This response was for a different reply, little app goof going on.
Applied Behavior Analysis
so⊠like CBT, but you donât enjoy the torture-part nearly as much?
Itâs a branch of behaviorism but it is a distinct branch from CBT. CBT involves cognition and behavior analysts donât work with thoughts, just behaviors. Like any therapy, it can be misused or it can be helpful, depending on your skill and sensitivity as a therapist. Behavior therapies are not about torture. They are therapies and aim to be helpful. Your mileage may vary though depending on what you want from therapy and how skillful your therapist is.
I think you got wooshed, cause Iâm pretty sure the CBT being referred to is cock and ball torture.
Though maybe I got wooshed, Iâm not 100% sure.
Sometimes you get wooshed I guess
I am surprised how well this played out.
yes, I was aiming exactly for the ambiguity between the 2 meanings of CBT.