ASAN Action Alert: Attwood and "Cassandra Syndrome"

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I'm passing this message along from ASAN. If you're concerned with Tony Attwood's endorsement of "Cassandra Affective Deprivation Disorder" and its potential use for discrimination against autistic people in family court, you may want to consider participating in these activities, if possible. This is of particular interest to those of you in Dallas, Portland (OR), and Richmond (VA).

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For those of you who are similarly concerned about Dr. Tony Attwood's support of the Cassandra libel, stating that Autistic people should be discriminated against in family law and child custody settings, ASAN is looking for some people willing to hand out flyers expressing our concerns in respect to Dr. Attwood's continued association with hate groups and refusal to meaningfully respond to the Autistic community on this issue. We need people in the following locations or who can drive or be driven to the following locations:

Columbia, South Carolina
Richmond, Virginia
Dallas, Texas
Salt Lake City, Utah
Fairmont, Montana
Portland, Oregon

Our intent is to focus on Richmond, Portland and potentially Dallas, but if we get enough volunteers at any of the other areas, we might expand the focus as well. Please comment here or e-mail me at [email protected] if you are interested. For those of you looking for more information on this issue, I suggest you read our initial statement and our response to Dr. Attwood's form letter linked to below:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/AttwoodHenault/
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/modules ... ?itemid=43

Could you provide a link explaining what this is about? I don't know anything about the "Cassandra" thing..... sorry.

Some recommended reading for those who want to learn more about this situation:

Some posts from ASAN and affiliated chapters.

Some blogs which discuss discuss the issue.

Other recent threads on WrongPlanet.

I've also blogged about it a bit on my own blog, linked in the signature.

I have actually written a blog about the topic that can be found at my website:

Aspie Girls

I have a link to the original clip of Attwood making his comments regarding the "Cassandra Phenomenon".

I also have some commentary on the issue.....

Personally, I think that Attwood has just used a metaphor that is not unique to psychology/psychiatry. He has even written a statement in his defense. There is a link for this in my blog, too.

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Am I reading these articles right? Why is FAAAS considered a hate group? I, of course, have Aspergers and am in a VERY STRONG relationship with my husband, and there has been no negative effect of my AS on our relationship.

For publishing numerous anti-autistic ideals, essays, and emotional hyperbole - including (but not limited to):

* The invention and promotion of the concept of CADD (the idea that being in a relationship with an autistic adult causes a person to develop depression and other afflictions - http://www.faaas.org/doc.php?40,,966334p,faa256063,,,Index,.html).
* Attempting to influence legal institutions to discriminate against AS people in divorce and custody disputes (http://www.faaas.org/doc.php?25,187,,966334p,faa256063,,,Index,map.html).
* Lot's of published anti-autistic ranting - for example, this link (http://www.faaas.org/doc.php?33,97,966334p,faa256063,,,Doc,page.html) includes the phrase "the trauma of having cancer is nothing compared to the trauma of being married to someone who has Asperger's Syndrome".

Speaking in more general terms, it is a place where people who dislike their AS partners can congregate and vent about how much they dislike people with AS. That sounds like a hate group to me...

OK that's what I got from those articles. I think maybe at first I didn't want to believe such a group could exist and do such a thing. Why are people so intolerant of autistic people?

Neither would most of the people who are likely to receive these flyers, even the name of Tony Attwood is not very well known outside of the autistic community.

I really don't see the point to this.

Because people whose partners have recently been diagnosed with AS will usually seek either more information or support, and that's when they'll discover both Tony Attwood & FAAAS.

If FAAAS was on their own, they could easily just be written off as a bunch of crackpots - but Tony's name attached to the group gives them an undeserved credibility.

That's why this campaign is important.

They could just as easily discover Wrong Planet.

Wouldn't putting this information in the form of an article and submitting it for the home page be more effective than handing out flyers to NT's in Portland?

I'm one of the people handing out the flyer in Dallas. I think you misunderstand who we are handing the papers out to. These are conferences where hs is the headline speaker. Most if not all people there will know his name, especially as an authority on AS.

I'm attending the conference in Dallas as I'm also a parent, and want to hear the other presentations. But being a wife, mother and person with AS, I do feel the need to speak up about this. Not only for myself, but for my children and others like them.

For those interested, I will be blogging and twittering the entire conference. Link in my signature.

When do you need people in Fairmont, Montana? And where in MT is that? That's the closest state to me (I'm in SD) so I'm trying to figure out if I can do this or not. I'd love to do it, I absolutely abhore FAAAS and their groupies, and I'm totally disgusted with Tony Atwood for selling out to them and actually giving them any credibility whatsoever.

My teenage son is an aspie and it infuriates me that this group, along with ASPIA in Australia, is actively working to sow hate and discrimination against aspies, particularly in family courts and employment. I will work as hard as possible all of his life to counter them. Hubby's ex discovered FAAAS and is convinced he's an aspie, but he is not. Nevertheless, that didn't stop her from peddling the unscientific Cassandra BS. My son is a wonderful young man and I'll be damned if I'll have any such group perpetuating hate and discrimination against him.

I'm also in the legal field and I'm looking into countering FAAAS's influence with social workers and family lawyers, they've even been quoted in the Family Law Journal.

It's on Wednesday, July 22, in the Butte area. If you might be able to do it, please let Ari know: [email protected]

ASAN can give you a flyer to hand out to people attending the conference.

You are right, I didn't; that wasn't made clear in the opening post. Targeting conferences that Attwood is speeking at does make sense. My apologies.

I'm curious; are there Q&A's at these conferences so that people could ask him about it? The public statements I have seen do not say very much.

But I don't see anything wrong with discussing these issues. I personally believe they are valid issues (and on the other side of things, there are many benefits to being married to a person with AS).

I would think that being married to a person with AS could certainly be very traumatic in some ways for a non-autistic, emotional, person because in many ways their emotional/dependency needs would not be fully met (as AS people tend to be individualistic, and logical - as opposed to emotional and group orientated).

I think in some cases, without proper communication and finding alternative solutions, these issues could certainly lead to depression and other comorbid disorders.

However, attempting to influence legal institutions to discriminate against AS people in divorce and custody disputes is wrong.

This is just my opinion on the matter.

Your reference to ASPIA and Carol Grigg is outmoded and out of date. Carol Grigg and ASPIA are not trying to "sow hate." You are getting fairly nasty here, actually. Not that i really care about the legalities. What does scare me is your level of rage.

Carol Grigg herself - who manages the ASPIA site - has issued an apology regarding anything that may have appeared offensive on their Website. Go and take a look. It is there. SHe has also contacted me personally and made it very clear she wishes to work with ASD people and wants to learn, understand and work hard to create a really positive solution in situations WHERE ASD's may possibly have an unfortunate impact on a relationship. She sincerely wants to WORK WITH US and is not divisive. Maybe if you contacted her and spoke with her directly with a less vitriolic tone than the one I see here, you might be able to hear what she is trying to say. I have received personal emails from her that are balanced, compassionate and very much founded upon a wish to work sincerely with ASD people. She never meant any harm. She is not a "hate sowing" kind of person, actually. Maybe some of the things she said on the ASPIA site initially were a little misguided and not quite sensitive, but that is a far cry form the intent to sow hate, as stated here. Everyone makes mistakes. I find your statements ratehr coloured by emotion and lacking in objective, intellectual appraisal, which for me - as an ASD person - is of far more importance.

As for FAAS - no comment. I know nothing about them, and don't really want to. Not my country/

I have AS. I also have enough cognitive insight and capacity for intellectual analysis TO KNOW various of my ASD traits have been difficult for my family to deal with. And that has never meant I have to change myself. It has meant all members of the family have learned how to work with AS rather than be combative, divisive and downright silly and contentious about the issues it raises.
Big deal. So what. WOW. What - because we have an ASD we MUST be excused from criticism by others? MY AS has been hard for my family. WHAT...this is NOT ALLOWED TO BE SAID? So frigging what? So my ex partner is not allowed to say "Your routines are HELL for me, sometimes?" I'm not offended by that. A rational consideration of the facts of a relationship such as ours was, points to this as a reality. So partners must say nothing? One hopes we ASD people can be mature enough to be able to hear that, when it is relevant, and see it for what it is...a simple opinion regarding how some of our issues may impact those around us. WOW. that is simply called human relationships. It also is an issue of healthy self-searching and openness. One hopes ALL people at least learn a bit of this on their journey in life (ASD or not.)

Gee, I'd hate to live with the level of vitriol I see here sometimes.
Takes me back to darker times in my life when I hated the world and stayed stuck in a mire of negativity and poison. Glad that phase is now over.

I urge you to look at the ASPIA site and read Carol Grigg's statement.