ABA is often impugned among autism advocates for being an invalidating and abusive treatment modality for autistic children. In this "therapy," autistic children are punished for acting autistic and rewarded for not acting autistic (like Pavlov's dog) until all that remains is an artificial shell that appears adaptive but is really a scarred victim of conditioning.
While true, what's ironic is that this evidences the main bias in discourse surrounding autism: that only autistic children are cared about, whereas autistic adults are left unconsidered.
Because the main form of psychotherapy in existence for adults (whether autistic or not), CBT, is similarly based in behavioral conditioning. Indeed, behavior is exactly what the B in CBT stands for, and it's the main component of this "therapy," rather than the C which stands for cognition. The latter, which makes the therapy sound scientific and credible, is only pretense and I can demonstrate this with my insights from "treatment."
The C in CBT might as well stand for conceit, if not conditioning, because the presumptions that underlie the understanding of cognition in CBT are not only flawed and fallacious but understood to be so within the therapy itself, which, it quickly becomes evident, has more in common with capitalist priorities regarding productivity and pseudo-Buddhism as coping with the stresses of it rather than scientific knowledge.
The primary assumption in CBT is that thoughts precede emotions. So if you are feeling angry or sad or glad, it is because your thought process guided you there. This is utter nonsense from a basic evolutionary perspective, given that the regions of the brain which deal with thinking are nascent compared to the regions of the brain which deal with emotion.
But even if you are to belabor under this premise, CBT continues to fall apart. It presumes to tell you about how "negative" emotions are due to "distorted" thoughts in particular. One of these categorical "cognitive distortions" is "dichotomous thinking," which sounds awfully similar to the dichotomy of "negative" vs. "positive" emotions presented in the therapy, wherein only the "negative" are considered the result of "distorted" thoughts.
And sure enough, a CBT therapist will quickly abandon all cognitive jargon and reveal himself to be a plain behaviorist when contradictions such as this are pointed out to them. They will cease using the term "distorted thinking," for example, and merely say "unhelpful thinking."
So dropping the C in CBT, all we are left with is BT, and since nothing about it is therapeutic, it might as well be revised to BS (Behaviorist Shite).
While true, what's ironic is that this evidences the main bias in discourse surrounding autism: that only autistic children are cared about, whereas autistic adults are left unconsidered.
Because the main form of psychotherapy in existence for adults (whether autistic or not), CBT, is similarly based in behavioral conditioning. Indeed, behavior is exactly what the B in CBT stands for, and it's the main component of this "therapy," rather than the C which stands for cognition. The latter, which makes the therapy sound scientific and credible, is only pretense and I can demonstrate this with my insights from "treatment."
The C in CBT might as well stand for conceit, if not conditioning, because the presumptions that underlie the understanding of cognition in CBT are not only flawed and fallacious but understood to be so within the therapy itself, which, it quickly becomes evident, has more in common with capitalist priorities regarding productivity and pseudo-Buddhism as coping with the stresses of it rather than scientific knowledge.
The primary assumption in CBT is that thoughts precede emotions. So if you are feeling angry or sad or glad, it is because your thought process guided you there. This is utter nonsense from a basic evolutionary perspective, given that the regions of the brain which deal with thinking are nascent compared to the regions of the brain which deal with emotion.
But even if you are to belabor under this premise, CBT continues to fall apart. It presumes to tell you about how "negative" emotions are due to "distorted" thoughts in particular. One of these categorical "cognitive distortions" is "dichotomous thinking," which sounds awfully similar to the dichotomy of "negative" vs. "positive" emotions presented in the therapy, wherein only the "negative" are considered the result of "distorted" thoughts.
And sure enough, a CBT therapist will quickly abandon all cognitive jargon and reveal himself to be a plain behaviorist when contradictions such as this are pointed out to them. They will cease using the term "distorted thinking," for example, and merely say "unhelpful thinking."
So dropping the C in CBT, all we are left with is BT, and since nothing about it is therapeutic, it might as well be revised to BS (Behaviorist Shite).
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