Tony Attwood's 4 Stages of Diagnosis Acceptance?

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There is the 7 stages of awareness for just about everything under the sun, it seems... from buying zucchinis to being an Indigo child.

And here is the AS one, in diagram...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DfGtgVEdSuE/S ... erview.jpg

LOL I don't get the bliss part. When was that supposed to happen?

Here's the 4 steps!

1) Doctor says you have Asperger's
2) You realise, after reading about the symptoms, you do
3) ????
4) PROFIT!

my diagnosis of asperger syndrome at 22 was just a refinement of my earlier life time diagnosis of autism.
there were no stages of acceptance for me. from the time i knew what was going on, i knew that i was autistic, so it is not like i never dreamed i was autistic, and suddenly found out i was at a later age.

even if i was never told i was autistic, i would still know that i was not born with the same type of mind as those i see around me. i knew from the first time i understood my world, that i was not like anyone else.

More numerology

I'm sure I never went through 4 stages of acceptance. Here's what happened to me:

1. Skeptical but willing to explore further.
2. Acceptance of possibility based on self-assessment.
3. Diagnosis followed by identity crisis.

Acceptance didn't go in stages at all, it was simply the loigical conclusion of material observations. I think these experts often try to force life to fit their pipe dreams. But we're all individuals and everybody will have a different experience.

Is that from the South Park underpants gnomes?

I believe that's where it originated from, yes.

If you phased out, why didn't you ask her to repeat it? Were you just too embarassed to admit you are phasing out? I think you should simply ask her on your next appointment what these 4 stages are. Everyone phases out there is nothing so wrong about it. Besides it is your councelor so if you think phasing out is a problem she can help you with it, thats what she is there for LOL.

I'll hazard a guess that it is something like:

Denial, Bargaining, depression, acceptance

or

Denial, Anger, depression, acceptance

where acceptance means: you accepting what you are and being comfortable with it.

Anyway, I suspect it is a variation on the four stages of grief: e.g. here ... http://www.growthhouse.org/books/bowlby3.htm

with (1) numbing=denial; (2) yearning and searching=trying to hold onto the pre-diagnosis life; (3) disorganisation and despair=depression(giving up the struggle against the diagnosis); and (4) greater or less degree of organization=acceptance and getting on with the new insight into your life.

Anyway, this is all a guess on my part.

For me so far, it has been (1) Huh? (2) Ignore it. (2) (rediscover it) Wow that's me!! !! (4) Um, how do I get on with my life, taking this into account?

I didn't go through any sort of denial - I simply felt relief, because I knew there was something wrong with me, and then I knew what it was.

Did he rip off that "stages of grief" stuff? 'Cause I hope he knows they're not even particularly valid for grief, let alone an AS diagnosis.

Interesting, I shall read it. However, it's not by Tony Attwood, and it's seven stages, not four. So her memory must have screwed up very badly there.

Seems to be more likely. If she was correct about associating Tony Attwood with it, then she probably had heard him talk about it in a lecture or something. I've read two books by him and he hasn't mentioned this anywhere.

I guess this model was created for the same purpose that she was using it for - to understand someone the professional is working with in a more concrete, straighforward context.

I don't see either the 4 or the 7 step processes applying to most of the stories I see here on WP. The denial I see most frequently has more to do with comprehensively understanding and accepting the pervasive nature of the effects, than with believing or not believing one has AS (though that does come up occasionally).

I think for those of us who came across the whole concept of AS later in life, there is a 'recognition' stage where you hear about Asperger Syndrome and say "Hey! That's ME!" but don't really know where to go with it from there.

There was a short phase immediately after formal diagnosis during which it finally hit me as a reality - that it wasn't just some 'nerd club' for geeky awkward people to band together in order to feel less excluded from society at large - that I actually have a diagnosable neurological disorder. That was like a cold bucket of water in the face and it did make me feel kinda down for awhile, but whaddaya gonna do - it wasn't like I just caught this thing, its been a part of who I am all my life. Diagnosis didn't change that. So I suppose that's the 'darkness' and 'acceptance' but that's about as far as I can identify with the 'stages'.

i am for sure going through some kind of stages of grief. over and over.
denial / acceptance / anger / depression ...

i envy those who just shrugged it off and thought "that makes sense."

from what i've read i think i'm having a harder time of it than most. almost total breakdown ..

It can be very hard to accept being disabled when you've lived your whole life in a world that believes disability is bad, unacceptable, and makes you somehow less than human. You can't help but soak up those prejudices.

It does help to actually study that phenomenon, and to figure out which ideas are actually true, and which things can be changed. We get a lot of pain when we take for granted society's beliefs about us.