If physical illness was treated like mental illness..

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No, you have misunderstood me, perhaps I did not sufficiently clarify the central point I was making:

Which is that all these important other issues would be completely missed by a reductionist approach, possibly with fatal consequences.

Knowledge is power: the patient empowered by information resulting from a non-reductionist multifactorial approach can then use that power to make his or her choices about whether to engage in future treatment/interventions and if so to what extent.

This important article on biomedical issues associated with ASD will be of interest to many I think, because again and again in forums there are threads asking "do you think this (physical issue) is related to ASD?"

This covers a number of those thread issues and provides very informative answers.

http://www.autismtreatment.org.uk/wp-co ... s-2013.pdf

Thanks for a very interesting discussion on this thread. Glad people enjoyed the cartoons.

To round it off, here is a clinical lecture about the mental symptoms of physical illnesses - a most cautionary tale... hope you find it interesting.

http://www.continuingedcourses.net/acti ... rse067.php

I often heard of people with mental health problems being told to snap out of it and people with a more visible condition being told to take it easy and is treated much better. Also a valid point is that a person with a camoufalges developmental disability such as autism especially one without a learning disability (having allistic level IQ over 70) is dehumanised where as a person with a physical condition for example cancer gets proper understanding and support especially because the latter is terminal. Allistic people say about autistic children they need more 'discipline' where as a child with cancer is told he or she needs a holiday to America to feel better and would be therapeutic. You could imagine the outrage that would be felt if childhood leukaemia was treated with the attitude that he or she needs more discipline etc. We all know people with physical conditions and disability can really milk the system for sympathy and that autistic people by the definition of autism/Asperger syndrome cannot and this is an issue which has angered me since 1974 and has led to me in the past for doing things that I am not proud of because I am and was so sick and tired of the lack of empathy from allistic people and they say we lack empathy.

The only sick childrens charity I will donate to is the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London where I was treated for Dravet syndrome in 1968. I'm not heartless I can show compassion to those that really need it in 1988 I used to let a woman with type 1 bipolar disorder cry on my shoulder because I realy felt for her at the time but she was allistic still and other people. I also at the time used to take the piss out so society's stigma against invisible conditions. I used to help my mum with her shopping when I was 14 years old because she at the time had slight agoraphobia when she went out and her friends at the time were worse than useless.

I refused one point to donate to a kids cancer charity by saying that children with autism are just abused and told all they needed was more discipline but the child with cancer gets wrapped up in cotton wool and treated with kid gloves even getting trips to theme parks in America or France where as the autistic child gets abuse and years later is expected to show compassion at every one else. Where is the outrage at treating autistic/Asperger syndrome children as malingerers, are they less than human? No

Ah yes, this was the thread I was trying to bring up in a thread about empathy, but couldn't remember what the title of this thread was.

This is what really irks me when stuff about empathy gets brought up, and how so many NTs believe that Aspies lack empathy, and so many Aspies believe that themselves lack empathy. It just ticks me off. Not saying NTs don't have empathy, not saying that at all. But, I'm just saying, that if more people could put themselves into the shoes of people with mental illnesses, then....I can't think of the right words to finish that sentence, but you know where I'm coming from (sorry, my mind keeps going blank lately). So I don't know what the difference is between the empathy levels of NTs and Aspies. I believe I am very empathetic. I may not be that good at giving advice, but that does not mean I lack empathy. It just means that my mind goes blank often and I'm not knowledgeable enough to think of a good solution. Usually my ideas are dumb, like if somebody was telling me their problems about money, they might as well be trying to get advice from a 10-year-old of how to deal with their problems with money. I can empathise, imagine how they feel, understand, and be there for them, all that sort of thing, but to think of ways to actually be able to help them with their money....I just don't know what to offer there. Makes me sound dumb to other people I suppose.