Autism And The Plastic Brain

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This thread is intended to give great hope and bring much healing and happiness to those who feel themselves to be are suffering from autism and/or brain damage and also the effect of various forms of mental conditioning and trauma.

For those of you who are happy as you are and feel you are not struggling and suffering because of your autism, then this thread may not for you, but perhaps you could gain something from it, too..

I do not have much time to write now as I have been on the internet for almost five hours this morning watching various tapes on this subject. It started when I woke up and was despairing over the mess in my bedroom and while still in bed reached fore the first book on a shelf wanting to get rid of some books and found this book with a torn off cover which I found in a free box a month or so ago but only barely looked at and then forgot about.

Here is a tape you will be very glad to have watched, and much more is to follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3TQopnNXBU

Love, littlebee

The ideas herein could change your life, I do not mean reading the book, itself, just certain of the ideas and the application of them, but here is a link to the entire book except for the notes, references and index section. I will be using this material as a learning tool to look at the subject of ourselves from many different angles.

Again, understanding and applying to our individual circumstances some of the material given in this book and also the intensive enquiry into this subject matter of this thread could CHANGE OUR LIVES. i am going to be selecting pertinent parts and go over the basic material presented little by little to make it simpler for people to process, so you do not necessarily have to read the whole book. By the way, I have not even read this book yet, just glanced at some of it, though I did watch the original pbs series at least twice a few years ago and yesterday watched two very long tapes of him presenting the ideas in his book/. I picked this book (which I had found in a free box a few weeks ago and just glanced at) off my shelf yesterday very early in the morning with the intent of throwing some books away and just grabbed this one as it was first on the shelf ,and then I realized this could be applied to my own brain damage, and also my autism and other problems and got very excited and spent many hours on the computer and then made this thread.

Feel free to ask questions and contribute insight and suggested approaches based on your own personal experience and attempts to apply these ideas in your personal life, and also, of course, to criticize or offer general feedback on any material here, I may very well be criticizing some of what he has said about psychotherapy in that, for one thing, I believe because he is a psychotherapist he has placed undue emphasis upon the potential of therapy, which imo, has many cult like characteristics, if is not even an actual cult, to help people.

At the time I saw his PBS series at least twice I was momentarily enthusiastic, but for me the interest just slipped away, as at that time I was not able to understand how to apply this material to my own brain damage, OCD and problems associated with autism. It did not even occur to me to try to do that as at that time I had not completely faced the fact of my own brain damage from concussions, though I knew about it, nor had I gone into the dynamics of being autistic, the latter of which I have since enquired into very deeply in conjunction with intensive observation of my own functioning.

So let's get started and go slow, as the brain has the tendency to function from what it already knows as that is the easy and natural path, but not always the best path in terms of learning something new, in that for the purpose of expediency it might skip over certain material it deems not significant or applicable. He goes into some angles of this in his book and on various tapes of presentations he has given.

ftp://72.198.52.12/FreeAgent_GoFlex_Dri ... itself.pdf

Yes!! ! This is what I've been trying to argue in other threads, when I try to explain how I believe I overcame my AS completely. The autistic brain may have been shown to be wired differently, but the human brain is capable of rewiring itself, and even our DNA constantly changes throughout our lives. It needn't just be a matter of developing coping strategies. I really do think I have a very different brain now than the one I was born with. In previous posts I have also tried to recount some of the therapies and practices that enabled these changes. I'll just copy that earlier post and put it here...

Here's my previous post:

JPS, thanks for your message. I don;t have much time this week and am still thinking about the best way to proceed on this thread.

The main point is that the brain is very plastic and flexible, even into old age, though not as much as in childhood, so a person is not the way he is born. That is in effect a myth, and no one even knows how they were when they were born is a point worth mentioning. Secondly,the brain takes the easy path and does what is natural and then becomes conditioned and crystallized in this way, and this does make sense that it would do so, but it is possible to circumvent this propensity and use the brain in new ways. He gives explicit examples of this in the tape and the book I have linked to. It is really quite thrilling.

I do not think I will go from beginning to end with the book but will jump around. Very impressive to me is this therapy with people who have one crippled arm or hand which involves deliberately restraining the use of the more functional hand by putting it a cast or whatever....so forcing the person to use the other hand, with very amazing and rapid favorable results.

What would happen if an autistic adult is forced not to be isolated. Obviously if someone else forces him, it would not be so cool and all kinds of disaster could result, but what if he chooses to force himself to not use the part of himself which craves to isolate and avoid social contact? This is not well thought out and I am not suggesting it as a strategy, and obviously this could also backfire, but just off the top of my head giving a possible example of the way this kind of thing strategy be employed.

I am using it with my eyesight, and am also going to use it regarding my brain damage, but will write about that later.

Wow, this is exciting! I actually did something very similar to what you just described!

I haven't really gone into details so far regarding Humaniversity Therapy, but I think it's time I expanded on it a little. It is group therapy, and you are pretty much forced into social contact with people all the time. Only a relatively small proportion of the time is spent chatting, while you mostly do a multitude of group activities and social meditations which include a lot of eye contact, hugging and interacting in ways other than talking. You tend to get very little sleep, maybe 3 hours a night though sometimes more and sometimes even less. You also do a great deal of physical and cathartic stuff, and are forever being thrown into situations that will push your buttons and take you way out of your comfort zone.

My point is, this IS a situation that will force your brain to form new connections and make big changes. At times it can seem like hell, and you might well find yourself freaking out. But freaking out is okay by them as long as you don't get violent, and it's safe - they'll help you through it and won't give up on you. Through the lack of sleep, the physical exertion etc you find yourself unable to fall back on your usual defences and coping strategies. Yet since your filters are down, certain other parts of yourself such as emotional awareness and intuition become much more accessible.

For me these parts of myself certainly seemed to have remained intact, despite their lifelong lack of proper use. Once I got in touch with them, these parts of me sometimes felt child-like and rather starved and battered, for the severe lack of attention. But wow, engaging them could also feel so utterly amazing in ways I'd never experienced before.

I won't say this was a quick transition for me. I did Humaniversity groups for over 2 years, including one that lasted a full, intensive month. Also, using this new side of myself to function within Humaniversity groups was quite different to using it to function better in the outside world - that still took years to get the hang of!

While I feel like overcoming my AS has taken a combination of many different things, the Humaniversity Therapy is what I feel did most to "restore" that one vital, intangible thing that on some level I always knew I had been missing.

Hi JPS, If don"t mind me asking, what is your aim and/or the kind of questions you have in coming to this forum, if any? To share that people can change and also explore particular methods or perhaps to suggest people engage in this kind of therapy that helped you? if the latter, imo, this would not be appropriate.

It may have worked out for you, and I'm glad it did, but it sounds like a CULT to me, and I emphatically do NOT recommend that any vulnerable people, which we probably all are, participate in this kind of group or anything remotely resembling it, as it can psychologically push a vulnerable person over the edge, and it is hard to know in advance if oneself or someone else is this kind of person..

If you want to discuss it, though, and share your experience, it's perfectly fine with me, as long as it relates back to the topic of the plastic brain and how understanding the brain is very pliable and flexible and working with that can help us live happier lives..

Can I just ask the both of you what are the specific aspects of autism that have been transcended by the practices you have mentioned and do you feel that the effort you've employed was worth the benefit?
I'm asking because I used to employ more learned behaviour to integrate, but have done so less as I have gotten older as I find the effort overwhelming.

JPS, no it's fine...carry on, and feel free to discuss your personal experience in that group if that seems to add to any of the context here, and I think it could. I am not at all against discussing that---just felt I need to give a qualifier...have to go someplace now.....

and to Ann, no time right now, and I don't know if this makes sense, but without some kind of so called rigidity I do not think the brain could even be flexible...it must work by both principles in cooperation or conjunction....it is to me a fascinating subject to explore....