What is Healing?
Filed Under (Acceptance, Art) by Estee on 25-05-2010
We talk a lot about healing in our day. “Healing autism” is the idea that we can get rid of it rather than letting it be. In this video from York Institute for Health Research, Holly Small discusses how dance enables healing by re-integrating our experiences with our bodies and emotions.
As we discuss the idea of healing, I’m wondering if we are able to view autism in this way — to not just create a revisionist view of autism, but even to reintegrate the experience — being a parent or a person with autism. The following video made me consider how we process experience as both typical and the neurological minority. Assume for a moment, based on our assumptions about rates of autism, that autistic people are the minority. I phrase it in this way because I am in the arts. I come across traits in “typical” people who are able to discuss their atypicalities and sensory abilities that seem outstandingly similar to autistic people, although some more major handicaps may not be present in some of these artists such as motor planning issues or an inability to talk. Yet the atypicalities are certainly present.
What I like about the following video is the way healing is discussed by integrating experience. Acceptance is like an integration of experience, and the expressions we make both scientifically and creatively become manifestations of how we re-integrate the understanding of this into our consciousness. The video speaks of other interesting things too which I could of gone on about (schooling for instance), but I’ll leave the rest of the video to speak for itself. Copy and past this address to your browser:
ESTÉE KLAR
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
Writer.Curator of Art. Founder of The Autism Acceptance Project. Mother of Adam. I like to write about our journey, musings, attitudes towards autism.
Well written, as always! When I hear the word “healing” in this context, I see the same thing: getting rid of autism.
However, I believe that “healing” should be re-interpreted to mean healing from the resentment, the disappointment and the anger that is often felt when this diagnosis is given. That means everyone – parents, children – the whole family and social network of people around that family. Anger, resentment, fear and disappointment are part and parcel of any diagnosis. It’s normal and natural to grieve over something one did not expect or when we don’t get what we hope for. Everyone does it.
Feel it, express it constructively and then deal with it. How is one going to heal from one’s shock, anger, hurt and despair?
After that, one has to learn to accept that life will have a new normal. People who are grieving over all sorts of things are advised of this. That new normal includes a child on the autism spectrum. Yes, this child or adult is on the autism spectrum. It’s not going away. It’s not your fault. Now what? What are you going to do to help this child or adult live the best possible life?
What are you going to project upon your child? Understanding? Hope? Faith in him or her? Love?
Or will you project Anger, Fear, Resentment, Disappointment, or Despair?
The choice is always yours. No one can ever take that away from you. No one holds a gun to a person’s head and says “Feel crappy about your child!” That all comes from within oneself and we all have the power to change those attitudes.
People forget that they have the ultimate freedom that nothing can take away from them: The freedom to choose how they will respond to any given situation. It is our greatest gift, our greatest freedom… and our greatest burden, for those choices also come with consequences of all sorts.
The freedom of choice is a big challenge… a *huge* responsibility and sometimes a big pain in the butt. But then… so is parenthood, right?
If one can be responsible and courageous enough to choose to become a parent, one can choose how one will respond to their children.
People expect autistic people to “integrate” into society and are disappointed when that integration does not happen. The core issues for an autistic person are what need to he healed on his or her end… but it doesn’t stop there.
My question is: Why does no one even try to “integrate” themselves into the life and way of being of a person on the autism spectrum? Why does no one actually try to heal that hurt they they carry and project upon their children, thus damaging them too? What happened to meeting in the middle? It’s one of the golden rules of communication yet it occurs so infrequently when it comes to autism.
Autism may not have a cure at this time, but there is a cure for hurt, anger, despair, resentment and negativity in general: it’s called looking at things from a different perspective. AKA: changing attitudes, acceptance, being of actual use, learning from the experience, and helping one’s child grow in this big and crazy world instead of constantly fighting him or her.
Just some thoughts that were inspired by this excellent post (and the video too!)
Keep up the great work – I really love reading To Get to the Other Side!
I would saying healing as being a full integration of your experience is a good place to start to get a better understanding of the concept. So much of our contemporary understanding of healing has to do with the medical profession. At the same time, much of contemporary life continues to fragment.
Adjusting our understanding of what it means to be healthy is a good place to start to understanding the full range of human experience.