Parents of autistic children do not love them

Fuinseog

or so a Cork academic claims. It has been discussed widely on the Joe Duffy show, but otherwise has apparently caused few ripples and he has yet to recant. The man lectures at the university. A secondary school teacher would not get away with such an outdated and outrageous statement.



http://www.thejournal.ie/controversial-autism-article-should-be-retracted-psychological-society-of-ireland-350914-Feb2012/

StrawberryJazz

Fuinseog wrote: »

or so a Cork academic claims. It has been discussed widely on the Joe Duffy show, but otherwise has apparently caused few ripples and he has yet to recant. The man lectures at the university. A secondary school teacher would not get away with such an outdated and outrageous statement.



http://www.thejournal.ie/controversial-autism-article-should-be-retracted-psychological-society-of-ireland-350914-Feb2012/

I don't know what is more outrageous; that a man with as little intelligence as Tony Humphreys can read and write or that the article was published at all.

Speaking from experience, there is nobody more loved than my autistic sibling and his autistic friends. They cope with difficulties we can hardly imagine, let alone their parents.

Humphreys should not only be fired but also exiled.

dambarude

They're really running with the story on Liveline. It's very insulting to mothers of children with autism.

I tried to find the original article online but could only come across reactions to it.

If anybody's interested, a video has been posted here about psychoanalytic views of autism in France, which are in a similar vein to Humphreys.

EDIT: Found the article here http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/02/08/that-tony-humphreys-autism-article-in-full/

spurious

Hugely insulting to so many people.

Sad attempt at controversy to flog a few copies of his scribbles.

Fuinseog

dambarude wrote: »

They're really running with the story on Liveline. It's very insulting to mothers of children with autism.

I tried to find the original article online but could only come across reactions to it.

If anybody's interested, a video has been posted here about psychoanalytic views of autism in France, which are in a similar vein to Humphreys.

EDIT: Found the article here http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/02/08/that-tony-humphreys-autism-article-in-full/

I see he kind of made a retraction in The Examiner this week. From what i have heard the guy does not do apologies. I am surprised the other national newspapers did not take it up. nor indeed did it make the news. he refused to speak on livleline. UCC is apparently remaining silent on he matter.it would be good to see what he actually said in the original article.just found it. a few quotes.teachers as well as parents are dragged into it


"Indeed, my experience in my own psychological practice is that when parents and teachers resolve their own fears and insecurities, children begin to express what they dare not express before their guardians resolved their own emotional turmoil."

delta_bravo

StrawberryJazz wrote: »

Humphreys should not only be fired but also exiled.

I don't agree with the vast majority of what he says but thats very kneejerk. Research and academic debate should defeat his points.

One thing that definitely needs to be explored is what he calls the "gender bias" in SEN diagnoses. Boys seem to be diagnosed in far greater proportion to girls from my experience. I don't know whether its because girls have these disorders less compared to boys or that they're simply harder to spot.

StrawberryJazz

delta_bravo wrote: »

I don't agree with the vast majority of what he says but thats very kneejerk. Research and academic debate should defeat his points.

Having lived amongst severe autism all my life, I consider my reaction both thoughtful, insightful and well phrased. Parents, siblings etc spend most of their lives fighting for basic services for autistic people.

It is inherently wrong that this article was published. We do not need tripe like that being thrown around the media. Why should hundreds of autistic people have no say in their future, and this man gets to publish whatever will get him few more euros in his back pocket?

Joey the lips

Been following this all week. Apparently Tony Humphreys took the work by orig authors in the UK and put his own spin on it.

Having spoken to the orig author it has been now established that this was not said by the authors.

Tony Humpheries is incorrect in his conclusions and more importantly such a high profile person is in danger of causing a lot of unnecessary and needless pain to so many.

dambarude

Humphreys is due on the Marian Finucane show in a few minutes if anybody wants to tune in .

mikemac1

Very old theory, that's going back decades
Though you know more about it then me I think

I saw the Claire Danes film, Temple Grandin and the American doctor said the same.

An autistic child has an emotionally cold and distant mother

The Cork person is probably just repeating what they learned when he was getting trained

dambarude

mikemac1 wrote: »

The Cork person is probably just repeating what they learned when he was getting trained

Even if that is what is he is doing, it's not acceptable. He trades as a consultant Clinical Psychologist, and should know that what he says should be empirically tested or theoretically sound. It's neither.

But that's not the case - he's not just spouting what he was told when he trained. He has obviously thought about this recently and come to this conclusion.

He did no about turn in what he said today, which was more upsetting bunkum.

Nadser

Personally, having read the article, I don't have a problem with anything he stated. Just my opinion.