(12)Class reaction paper

Ableism is believing that I need to be fixed. Ableism is your refusing to fix what is really broken… (class text). The neoliberal ideal perceives disability as a tragedy that needs to be fixed. Likewise, the medical model overlooks any unique meaning that a disabled individual may serve at the consequence of fixing this biologically impaired organism, so that they will fit into the imagined norm of society as closely as possible. By contrast, the social model is created by the disabled to recognize and change barriers that marginalize (i.e., access, stereotypes, policies) and oppress them. Preference hierarchies are created to distinguish where people belong in society (i.e., dominance and subordination), in fact these interactions meet at the institutional level (i.e., schools, hospitals, workplace, government agencies) at the symbolic intersections of (i.e., race, class, gender, dis/ability). I react emotionally when experiencing interpersonal and intergroup systems of oppression, and/or inequality, because I am empathic so it makes me sad rather than mad. My experience is that I do not judge others, instead I reason objectively to rationalize any adverse behaviors that I may experience from others to gain understanding of where they are coming from. This cognitive style is proactive thinking that relieves a burden because I can reason where others are coming from, whether I agree with them or not. In the same way this cognitive style and emotional state can prevent stereotypical thinking as well, because when using reason and rationality to balance incoming thoughts, therefore an individual will be more apt to controlling any adverse attitudes, opinions, and behaviors that may arise. This is important Stereotypes often emerge from our own attitudes and opinions to diagnose and define disability, indeed this order (medicalization) may utilize prejudicial thinking to distinguish and categorize folks into specific social groups. This paper looks at the fundamental aspects of disability prejudice, accordingly that symbolic and institutional functioning stems from stereotypes (i.e., content, cultural, ambivalent.) that are used to categorize people to a normal – abnormal binary system based off of role expectations and biased overgeneralized assumptions in an effort to label them and form the status in society in which they will hold. . For instance, ambivalent stereotypes are often seen in learning and developmental disabilities. For example, a common stereotype for an autistic person is to be perceived as dumb, lazy, violent, but also happy, fun loving, and childlike. One challenging aspect of thinking is selective information processing, which may leave an individual misinformed between their very own perceptions and the actual social reality that they will see. Even ABA therapist’s following prescribe to the medical model may even oversee insight to a better informed way, for example the social model; diet and other environmental factors that affect the subject, rather than using negative punishment therapy that is shown to carry a high risk factor. An autistic child that was given an aversive treatment (i.e., vinegar, lemon juice) resulting in a “bizarre” bodily reaction as a response to the drink, therefore was labeled to a medical term fugitive struggle. It would be safe to say anyone that would have given this aversive therapy would have some kind of awkward response to this stimulus, yet the child’s response was labeled by what is known as a fugitive practice that is used to identify the child as abnormal. These technique’s may be seen as textbook example of the pathology paradigm, also as a consensus goal to constitute who is seen as belonging (normal) versus not belonging (abnormal) as a result of the behavioral outcome to the stimulus. I find this as revealing, because neoliberal individualism is all about exclusion of those that do not belong, and uses outdated ineffective models like the pathology paradigm that are often quick to label rather than account for the person as a whole. One experience I have is being labeled and expected to comply to the label or be forbid the circumstances of living a normal life this is typical of the content model stereotype. In a capitalist society people can become very competitive, aggressive, and extreme for their own success, for their own cause, and often at the expense of others. That is ok for me it is their prerogative, and I am sure they are not apt at being treated in such a way that lacks integrity and respect. This is typical of the behavior that the stereotype content model (SCM) for ordinate subordinate power plays, thus someone that exhibits a big ego needs to create an inferior to support their superiority complex. . Researcher shows that those who do not meet the valued standards of a culture are often invalidated, ostracized and discriminated against. Separating the indifference of concepts between medical and social model is important for understanding what works best in the many different social interactions to prevent ableist thinking that uses prejudicial queries and language. Autism speaks an activist group suggests a paradigm shift away from pathological thinking to use language like neurodiverse “the functioning label” normal and instead use language like neurotypical. This language is more versatile between abled and disabled people, because it is not inclusive to imposing the ideology of the norm by opposing the abnormal. An experience I find important to share that shows the biomedical model is outdated is that I asked an ABA therapist about diet being helpful for curbing behavioral and learning issues for autistic people and he said, no. I was surprised he then referred to diet as a gimmick therapy that has not been proven as effective for helping autistic people. This was a revealing aspect that shows the enduring nature of biomedical model uses language it opposes nature (environmental) aspect of curing mental illnesses like autism. In fact, diet does help and can lead to neurological improvement for autistic folks. . . The pathology paradigm (biomedical model) uses neurodivergent language to separate mental illness from the norm, surely one can only wonder how this type of thinking may be related to eugenicist logic. First the medical model does not account for socio-political aspects that are designed to oppress disabled people. In autism a form of punishment was used to query a neuroqueer label from a fugitive practice that may lead to the patient being labeled as a way to preclude the very role that he must hold in society. The mad pride article regarding biopsychiatry (page 108) states, mental health policies and services were created without any input from people who have experienced meant illness or their families. As a result these programs failed to meet or understand the needs of the people that they were designed to help. Misconceptions and maltreatment are common in the medical model, because of lackluster thinking that fails to consider all the variables that come into account for treating the disabled. Mental health practitioners recognize a one size shoe fits all, which lacks objective data and a scientific approach to diagnosing patients. Due to the nature of mental illness the APA has difficulty claiming biological inference to the cause of mental illness, yet biopsychiatry overprescribes antidepressants (medicalization) through the basis of a biological pretense. Is ot really a irreversible biological imperative for the chemical imbalance, or is it societal factors (unresolved stress) or environmental influences that need to be resolved rather than give a drug that will surely create an imbalance, especially when trying to stop taking it. Practicing methods based on the biomedical model overlooks alternative or other comorbid conditions that may be the actual underlying mechanism of the behavior, while their treating a symptom which neglects the root cause (gimmick therapy). . In this scenario the behavior would be a label, because the underlying causal mechanism has not been diagnosed and has yet to be verified. My experience with this is the level of bias involved with being labeled may be understood by just how much effort is engaged in reinforcing the label, while neglecting to account for anything that may defy the label (confirmation bias). It is like do or die (eugenics logic) thinking, and if you detest or defy the label you die (i.e., violence, hate). If a person is said to have a mental illness that is deemed as biological imperative, and if this person supersedes and defies this label then the one size fits all theory would be out the window. Just like other diagnostic labels of the past; feeblemined, homosexuality as a mental disorder, or even today; autism. Problems that resulted from homosexuality being seen as a mental disorder fifty years ago still linger today. Sex addiction is no longer listed in the DSM as a category partly due to biased overgeneralizations, conversely due to the fear that biased overgeneralizations may make it difficult to know where to draw the line of a disorder or some other factor (environment) or if there is any problem at all. Still, something seems to be broken and needs to be fixed the biomedical model see’s mental illness as merely a pathological (organic) one shoe fits all disorder, but the APA lacks firm objective evidence that mental illnesses are a biologically based imperative. . Understanding of the nature of mental illness is coming along with the advances of neuroimaging, still intuition plays an informative role in the protocols and diagnostic measures. This makes it important to steer away from the pathology paradigm’s contentious perceptions of either normal, or abnormal thinking, thereby steering towards the neurotypical individual through the lens of the neurodiversity paradigm. If these illnesses are all factors that correlate to intuitive decision making, which the content in this paper gives examples of why contrasts in cognitive styles can vary so much, then this makes it unpredictable to know when or where to draw the line. This reinforces the social model and gives sound reasoning to use a multi-dimensional approach of diagnostic measures. A framework that utilizes a broader diagnostic approach one that accounts for social and environmental factors for determining illness, in contrast the guise of normal vs. abnormal, but thinking that is inclusive to equality and neurodiversity one that treats the disabled and all people alike.

1). What role does nature vs. nurture make as a choice of treatment for the autistic patient?

Hint: social model as opposed to the current biomedical approach ABA for instance.

2). How is it in psychiatry that they would medicalize patients knowing that these drugs alter brain chemistry indefinitely? They are trained in western medicine in which insists a medical model focus, yet commonly neglect environmental and social factors that are the majority factor of underlying causal mechanism of the behavior, but blatantly overlook this to treat symptoms. Why?

The article I chose is: https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2019.1650719

Putting emotions to work: the role of affective disablism and ableism in the constitution of the dis/abled subject

I chose this paper because it helps to see what may be missing, and what needs to be fixed may be resolved by how the subjectification of ableism affects the disabled individual. Healing and understanding can be reciprocal for both parties to seek meaning through emotional work. For example, to procure ableist thoughts of disgust (which this article claims disgust is the fire that ignites emotion) negative emotions can be balanced through emotional work. Likewise, the disabled subject can use emotional work to clarify through an objective means to understand that prejudice often comes about by confusion, and is often a derivative of misconceived and misconstrued thought processes. As both parties can work these matters interpersonally then in unison maybe the ends of disabled prejudice can be met. The pain of indifference is indifference itself, so rather than be fooled by emotional pain tune into it, and let you begin to understand you today, and then through understanding and accepting others all the pain will go away.