Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

The Burnout Society is an essay by Byung-Chul Han.

In the essay, the author argues that there is too much positivity in the world. We now live in an “achievement society” and a “can do” culture, but we are the poor saps that have to do the doing. We find ourselves in a perpetual state of hyperactivity, unable to say no.

Traditional models of psychotherapy stem from Freud. But Han argues these are based on the repressive values of the Victorian era. Today everything is permissible and there are no rules, except that we must achieve and the potential to achieve more is endless, leading to burnout. We never reach the ultimate goal or achieve closure.

Traditionally, capitalism has achieved oppression by directly oppressing the working class. But in this new world, we are victims of self-oppression, believing that we are free and simply striving for better, which is supposedly good somehow, but are actually still mere slaves to the capitalist machine. Reduced to the essence of life, health becomes the new goddess. All focus is on keeping the body alive to serve the machine of capitalism.

It’s a hard read. It’s like reading Marx; I felt like I had been dropped into the middle of conversation at times and, again like Marx, he flips between a few different languages. Worth trying to get your head around, though.

Industrial Society and Its Future, perhaps better known as the Unabomber Manifesto, is an anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski. It was published in 1995 in The Washington Post. I watched the Netflix documentary on Kaczynski and thought I would give the essay a read.

Kaczynski argues that technology is the source of most of our problems. Industrial society is a system and human autonomy (which he calls the power progress) has to be limited in service of the system. If you are going to have a factory production line, you have to have workers there, at a time that suits the factory, working on the line.

Technology then becomes pervasive. For example, when cars were invented, you could live just fine and have a car or not have a car. It was good. But now, owning a car involves a driving licence, insurance, MOTs. And because people have cars, cities spread out and so now you have to have a car. Or rely on public transport, which limits your freedom even further.

It’s not correct that humans did not have an affect on the world before the Industrial Revolution. Yuval Noah Harari talks about how early humans eliminated most of the large mammals in Sapiens. But we are doing exponentially more damage now, as well as increasingly making ourselves miserable.

So it is arguably a good critique of the problems of our technological society.

He is wrong about everything else, though. Starting with the fact that he killed a bunch of people to get the thing published, which, it goes without saying, is morally wrong. Maybe things would have been different if social media had existed back then, allowing him to spread his message without violence.

Kaczynski would have hated me. The work starts and ends with an attack of “leftism” which is ill-defined but generally the political left including socialists, communists, and any group gammons would call “woke” these days such as LGBTQ advocacy groups or feminists. He argues that a lot of the people complaining are well educated white people. Which is true, because we are the people who have a voice. That’s how oppression theory works and I don’t see any understanding of oppression theory in the text.

Finally, he doesn’t offer any real solution. His solution is “nature”. But what does this look like? How does it work? Even if we wanted to live without all of our modern technology (such as a antibiotics, for example), how would we stop people just reinventing technology?

The Female Profile of Autism: A Guide to Clinical Assessment is a book by Isabelle Hénault and Annyck?Martin. It suggests its intended audience is both clinical professionals and autistic women looking to understand how autism presents in women and what the assessment process looks like.

It has three parts. The first talks about autistic experience in the third person. The second is a narrative written by Martin about her experience of discovering she is autistic. Part three is some guidelines for clinical assessment.

I wasn’t too sure what to make of the book. There is clearly a lot of relevant clinical experience here. But is it neuroaffirmative? I’m not sure. It’s not medical model but it’s not the language I would expect to see in a new book. However, it was written in French and then translated to English, so it is fair to say some of the language may have got off point in translation.

It also leverages the work of Tony Attwood a lot. Now, Tony Attwood is a legitimate bigwig with his own Wikipedia page. But some of the language is like “and the magnificant Tony Attwood says…” as if he is the Wizard of Oz. Maybe he is; I’ve not met him. But I would like a clinical book to reference research and integrate ideas a little more. And again, maybe some of this is the translation.

The assessment guide provides a lot of useful questions. I would tweak the language to pathologise a little less, but the questions hit on the relevant issues. Overall, I would say this is a useful book for clinicians working with autistic women and girls.

Under the Radar: An Essential Guide to Autism and Girls is a book by Dr Emilia Misheva.

It’s a short book at arounf 140 pages which makes it a nice easy read. There are not enough short books in the world. It is written for a general audience and would be a good read for anyone looking to understand a lot of the key issues for autistic girls. Clinicians might want something a little more technical but it would still be a good overview.

The Adult Autism Assessment Handbook is a clinical guide to carrying out autism. It is written by Davida Hartman, Tara O’Donnell-Killen, Dr Anna Day, Jessica K Doyle (Author), Dr Maeve Kavanagh, & Dr Juliana Azevedo, most of all of which are connected to the Adult Autism Practice of Thriving Autistic.

Although it is typically a guide to assessment, it’s a brilliant book to help anyone understand autism. It has a guide to neuroaffirmative language, in-depth explanations of what it is like to be autistic, up-to-date research on models of autism, a critique of current autism assessments and a guide to conducting collaborative assessments neuroaffirmatively. Well worth a read.

The Lost Girls of Autism: How Science Failed Autistic Women and the New Research that’s Changing the Story is a cognitive neuroscience book by Gina Rippon. It looks at the gender disprepenacy in autism. Previously, it was thought that it was mostly a “boy thing” with a 4:1 ratio. But increasingly, this difference is disappearing, and this book likes at why.

The two key issues the book identifies is that because it was thought of as a boy thing early on, researchers were mostly looking at boys, as well as girls that confirmed to a traditional male presentation. Women and girls who presented in a female way or non-traditional way were not spotted. Then the criteria and the standardised tests were developed on mostly male populations reinforcing the gender gap.

The second issue is that girls typically engage more on camouflaging and masking. Whereas boys will act out very visible behavioural differences, girls will typically internalise their struggles. This means they don’t display the same outward characteristics of boys but still have the same struggles. As a result of these internal struggles, they are often given a variety of labels such as anxiety, social anxiety, borderline personality disorder and basically almost anything other than the correct one: autism.

Women, regardless of neurotype, typically have more highly developed social skills than boys and are socialised to be more empathic. Autistic girls, like neurotypical girls, often feel a greater need to fit in, speeding more time modelling, writing social scripts, and practising social interactions in front of the mirror.

Having outlined all of this, the book dives into what neuroscience can tell us. I found this hard going without a neuroscience background but some of the possible models of autism that neuroscience is developing are interesting.

But you don’t look autistic at all is a book by Bianca Toeps. It’s a great read for anyone who is/suspects they are autistic or anyone with a friend or family member who is autistic and wants to understand that person better. it explores the phenomenology of autism mixing together Toeps’s personal experience, interviews with others and some solid science, too.

More Than Yorkshire Puddings: Food, Stories and Over 100 Recipes from God’s Own Country is a cookbook by Elaine Lemm.

Lots of nice stuff in here. Again, I didn’t make too many of the recipes, but probably more than Coast, and I did make a few of them several times. If you’re unfamiliar with Yorkshire food, this is a good guide.

Coast is a cookbook by Rachel Allen and subtitled recipes inspird by Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Coast”. Its organised in narrative form as she takes us on a journey from Cork all the way to Donegal.

It’s a fun read. I didn’t make many of the recipes because they tend to be quite involved in terms of sourcing ingredients as well as the cooking itself. But it has some lovely photography and stories in, too, so it is a nice book to have.

Bliss on Toast is a cookbook by Prue Leith.

The idea of a toast cookbook might raise eyebrows but the book is excellent. I tried almost every recipe. It makes such good lunches. They’re often quick to make and still delicious. If you are bored of your usual lunches, this is a great way to mix things up for little effort and big results. This is instantly one of my favourite cookbooks.